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THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  GOD  AND 
THE  WORLD. 


MORRISON  AND  GIBB,    PRINTERS,    EDINBURGH. 


THE 


CHRISTIAN   VIEW  OF   GOD^ 
AND  THE  WORLD 


AS    CENTRING 


IN     THE     INCARNATION 


BEING  THE  KEBE  LECTURES  FOE 
1890-91. 


By     JAMES     ORR,    D.D., 

PBOFESSOH   OK   CHURCH   HISTORY  IN  THE   UNITED   PRESBYTERIAN   COLLEGE, 


EDINBURGH. 


For  of  Hi  III,  and  throiujh  Him,  and  unto  Him,  art  all  things. 
To  Hint  he  the  glory  for  ever.     Arae/n." —l^m.  xi.  36, 


i^ 


NEW    YORK: 

ANSON    I).    F.    RANDOLPH    AND    CO. 

1893. 


Oj 


Gl^^<* 


THE   KERE   LECTURESHIP. 


The  "  Kere  Lectukeship  "  was  founded  by  the  Trustees  of  the  late  Miss  Joan 
Kerr,  of  Sanquhar,  under  her  Deed  of  Settlement,  and  formally  adopted  by  the 
United  Presbyterian  Synod  in  May  1886.     In  the  following  year.  May  1887, 
the  provisions  and  conditions  of  the  Lectureship,  as  finally  adjusted,  were 
adopted  by  the  Synod,   and  embodied  in   a   Memorandum,    printed   in   the 
Appendix  to  the  Synod  Minutes,  p.  489.     From  these  the  following  excerpts 
are  here  given  : — "II.  The  amount  to  be  invested  shall  be  £3000.     III.  The 
object  of  the  Lectureship  is  the  promotion  of  the  study  of  Scientific  Theology 
in  the  United  Presbyterian  Church.     The  Lectures  shall  be  upon  some  such 
subjects  as  the  following,  viz.  : — A.  Historic  Theology — (1)  Biblical  Theology, 
(2)  History  of  Doctrine,  (3)  Patristics,  with  special  reference  to  the  significance 
and  authority  of  the  first  three  centuries.     B.  Systematic  Theology — (1)  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  —  (a)   Philosophy  of  Religion,    (6)   Comparative  Theology,    (c) 
Anthropology,  (d)  Christology,  (e)  Soteriology,  (/)  Eschatology  ;  (2)  Christian 
Ethics— (a)  Doctrine  of  Sin,  (b)  Individual  and  Social  Ethics,  (c)  The  Sacra- 
ments, {d)  The  place  of  art  in  religious  life  and  w'orship.  .  .  .  Farther,  the 
Committee  of  Selection  shall  from  time  to  time,  as  they  think  fit,  appoint  as 
the  subject  of  the  Lectures  any  important  Phases  of  Modern  Religious  Thought, 
or   Scientific  Theories  in   their  bearing  upon    Evangelical    Theology.      The 
Committee  may  also  appoint  a  subject  connected  with  the  practical  work  of 
the  Ministry  as  subject  of  Lecture,  but  in  no  case  shall  this  be  admissible  more 
than  once  in  every  five  appointments.     IV.  The  appointments  to  this  Lecture- 
ship shall  be  made  in  the  first  instance  from  among  the  Licentiates  or  Ministers 
of  the  United  Presbyterian  Church  of  Scotland,   of  whom  no   one   shall  be 
eligible,  who,  when  the  appointment  falls  to  be  made,  shall  have  been  licensed 
for  more  than   twenty-five  years,  and  who   is  not  a  graduate  of  a  British 
University,  preferential  regard  being  had  to  those  who  have  for  some  time  been 
connected  with  a  Continental  University.     V.    Appointments  not  subject  to 
the  conditions  in  Section  IV.  may  also  from  time  to  time,  at  the  discretion  of 
the  Committee,  be  made  from  among  eminent  members  of  the  Ministry  of  any 
of  the  Nonconformist  Churches  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  America,  and 
the  Colonies,  or  of  the  Protestant  Evangelical  Churches  of  the  Continent.     VI. 
The  Lecturer  shall  hold  the  appointment  for  three  years.     VIII.  The  Lectures 
shall  be  published  at  the  Lecturer's  own  expense  within  one  year  after  their 
delivery.     IX.  The  Lectures  shall  be  delivered  to  the  Students  of  the  United 
Presbyterian  Hall.     XII.  The  public  shall  be  admitted  to  the  Lectures." 


871518 


PEEFACE 


These  Lectures,  the  first  on  the  Kerr  Foundation,  are 
published  in  fulfilment  of  the  conditions  of  the  Trust  under 
which  they  were  delivered.  Their  publication  has  been 
delayed  owing  to  the  author's  appointment  to  the  Chair  of 
Church  History  in  the  Theological  College  of  the  United 
Presbyterian  Church,  at  the  Synod  of  May,  1891.  They 
have  now  been  made  ready  for  the  press  under  the  burden 
of  labour  and  anxiety  connected  with  the  preparation  of  a 
second  winter's  course.  This  may  excuse  the  minor  over- 
sights which,  in  handling  so  large  a  mass  of  material,  must 
inevitably  occur. 

The  Lectures  are  printed  substantially  as  delivered  in  the 
spring  of  1891 — the  chief  exception  being  that  portions  of 
the  Lectures  which  had  to  be  omitted  in  the  spoken  delivery, 
through  the  limits  of  time,  are  here  restored  in  their  proper 
connection.  Material  which  could  not  conveniently  be  incor- 
porated in  the  Lectures  has  been  wrought  up  into  Appendices 
and  Notes.  The  latter  are  designed  to  furnish,  not  simply 
references  to  authorities,  but  illustrations,  corroborations,  and 
what  may  be  termed  generally  "  assonances "  of  thought, 
drawn  from  a  wide  range  of  literature,  which  it  is  hoped 
will  aid  the  reader  who  is  disposed  to  pursue  his  study  of 
the  subject  further,  by  guiding  him  to  the  best  sources  of 
knowledge.  Since  the  Lectures  were  delivered,  important 
books  have  appeared,  both  in  this  country  and  on  the  con- 
tinent, dealing  with  parts  or  aspects  of  the  field  here  traversed, 


viii  PREFACE. 

such,  e.g.  among  English  works,  as  Mr.  Gore's  valuable 
Bampton  Lectures  on  The  Incarnation,  Principal  Chapman's 
Pre-organic  Evolution,  Mr.  Kennedy's  Donnellan  Lectures  on 
Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought.  Occasional  references 
to  these  and  some  other  works  are  likewise  included  in  the 
Notes. 

The  author's  best  thanks  are  due  to  the  Eev.  Professor 
Johnstone,  D.D.,  of  the  United  Presbyterian  College,  and  to 
the  Eev.  Thomas  Kennedy,  D.D.,  Clerk  of  Synod,  for  their 
kind  assistance  in  the  revision  of  the  proofs. 

Edinburgh,  February,  1893. 


CONTENTS 


LECTUKE  I. 


THE  CHRISTIAN   VIEW  OF  THE   WORLD  IN  GENERAL. 


Inteoductory- 
The  term  *' 


"Weltanschauung 


Need  of  comprehensive  treatment, 

View  of  Christianity  in  the  Lectures,   . 

The  "Weltanschauung"  in  history — Kant,  etc., 
'-  Causes  of  general  views  of  the  world,   . 

Fondness  of  the  age  for  general  theories, 
/  Relation  of  Christianity  to  world-theories, 

The  Christian  and  "  modern  "  views  of  the  world, 
/  The  question  of  the  supernatural  in  Christianity, 

Relation  of  Christianity  to  other  systems  not  one  of  pure  negation 

The  Christian  view  of  the  world  based  on  that  of  the  Old  Testament 
— uniqueness  of  the  latter,    .... 

General  drift  and  scope  of  the  Lectures, 

Objections  in  limine : — 

L  From  theology  of  feeling,     .... 

Examination  of  sentimental  theory — 
-Religion  involves  ideas, 

Religion  not  indifferent  to  the  character  of  its  ideas, 
/  Religion  implies   belief   in  an  objective   counterpart   to  its 
ideas  :  -Esthetic  views  of  religion,      ... 
Need  and  room  for  a  religion  which  can  give  us  true  know 
ledge  of  God,  ...... 

Impossibility  of  extruding  doctrine  from  Christianity, 
Objection  to  doctrine  from  the  spirituality  of  Christianity, 
Objection  to  doctrine  from  the  side  of  Christian  positivism. 
The  theology  of  Schleiermacher, 
Objection  to  doctrine  drawn  from  progress  in  theology. 


3 
4 
4 

5 
7, 
8 
9 

10 
11 
12 

15 
17 


18 

19 

20 

21 

22 
23 
24 
25 
26 
28 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

II.  From  the  Ritschlian  distinction  of  a   "religious"  and  a  "theo- 
retic "  view  of  the  world, .  .  .  .  .  .29 

Relative  justification  of  this  distinction,      .  .  .  .31 

Error  of  the  Ritschlian  View— Impossibility  of  sundering  faith 
and  reason,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .33 

Religion  itself  has  in  it  the  impulse  to  theoretic  knowledge,  .       34 


APPENDICES  TO  LECTURE  I. 
Appendix  I. 

SKETCH   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN   VIEW. 

Sketch  of  the  Christian  View,  .... 


37 


Appendix  II. 


IDEA   OF   THE   "WELTANSCHAUUNG. 


Literature  on  the  subject,     ...... 

A.  Baur : — 

Prevalence  of  the  term,     .  .  .  .  . 

Striving  of  the  age  after  general  views. 

The  "  Weltanschauung  "  a  unity  of  natural  and  moral,    . 

Relation  of  theoretic  and  practical  motive, 
Views  which  recognise  the  practical  motive  alone — the  Ritschlian 
school,  ....... 

Ritschl  on  the  origin  of  the  "  Weltanschauung," 

Hermann  on  the  same,  ..... 

Kaftan  on  the  same,      ...... 


42 

42 
43 
43 
44 

45 
45 
46 
47 


LECTURE  11. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES. 

Introductory — 

Magnitude  of  the  assumption  in  the  Christian  view,    .  .  .51 

Rejection   of  the   doctrine   of  the   Incarnation  by  the    "modern" 
mind,  ........       51 

X^entral  place  of  Christ's  Person  in  His  religion,  .  .  .53 

Differing  estimates  of  the  Person  of  Christ — methods  of  settlement,    .       54 
Method  of  this  Lecture  —  appeal  to  history ;  logical  movement  in 
history,  ........       55 

Advantages  of  this  method,       .  .  .  .  .  .56 


CONTENTS.  xi 


I.  History  a  series  of  alternatives— the  downioard  movement, 

1.  First  alternative — A  Divine  Christ  or  hiimanitarianism, 

Arianism,  ..... 

Socinianism  and  the  older  Unitarianism, 

Christology  of  the  school  of  Schleiermacher, 

New  wave  of  mediating  theology  in  the  school  of  Ritschl 

The  verdict  of  history  against  intermediate  views, 

2.  Second  alternative — A  Divine  Christ  or  Agnosticism, 

The  weakness  of  Deism,  .... 

Need  of  a  living  Theism,  which  has  its  correlate  in  Revelation, 

Insecurity  of  a  Theism  cut  off  from  Christ— Rathboue  Greg 

etc.,      ...... 

No  logical  resting-place  short  of  Agnosticism,     . 

3.  Third  alternative — A  Divine  Christ  or  Pessimism, 

Depressing  influence  of  Agnosticism  ;  cuts  the  nerve  of  rational 

belief  in  progress,  ..... 

Rise  of  great  Pessimistic  systems. 
Pessimism  in  our  literature — sadness  of  the  sceptical  spirit; 

II.  The  upward  movement  from  Pessimism  to  Christ, 

Unsatisfactoriness  of  Pessimism  as  a  theory  of  existence — it  works 
back  to  Theism,       ...... 

The  dialectic  of  Pessimism,  .... 

Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann,      .... 

"Will"  and  "Idea" — their  relation, 

Hartmann's  "Unconscious"  —  attributes  to  it  will,   wisdom 
foresight,  etc.,  ...... 

The  "Unconscious"  becomes  a  "Supra-conscious," 
-— ^  Moral  attributes  ascribed  to  it,     . 

Transition  in  Karl  Peters  to  explicit  Theism, 
The   alternative   of  Pantheism  —  its   degradation   to   Materialism 
(Strauss,  Feuerbach),  .... 

The  nobler  movement— elevation  to  Theism, 
Fichte  and  Schelling,        .... 

The  Hegelian  development, 
British  Neo-Hegelianism — 

T.  H.  Green,     ..... 

Prof.  Seth  and  Theism, 
Theism  impels  to  belief  in  Revelation^ 

Recognition  in  modern  systems  of  idea  of  Revelation, 

Modern    theory    of    Revelation  —  natural    and    supernatural 

different  sides  of  the  same  process. 
Inadequacy  of  this  theory  ;  its  end  does  not  correspond  with  its 
beginning,         ..... 

The  God  of  Jesus  has  direct  access  to  the  soul     . 


Xll 


CONTENTS. 


II.  The  upward  movement  from  Pessimism  to  Christ  {continued) — 
Theism  impels  to  belief  in  Eevelation  {continued) — 

Martineau  and  Pfleiderer,  .... 

Outcome  of  this  theory — expectation  of  special  Revelation, 
Vocation  of  Israel ;  Christ  the  highest  Revealer, 
Return  to  positive  Revelation  in  school  of  Ritschl, 
Summary — Theism  can  only  secure  itself  through  belief  in  Christ, 


77 
78 
79 
79 
80 


Appendix  to  Lecture  II. 


THE    PESSIMISM    OF    SCEPTICISM. 


The  prevalence  of  Pessimism, 

. 

81 

The  Pessimism  of  Scepticism, 

■      81 

Illustrations — 

Voltaire, 

81 

Goethe, 

. 

82 

Renan, 

82 

Professor  Seeley, 

. 

83 

"  Physicus  "  (in  Candid  Examination  of  Theism),  . 

83 

Theodore  Jouffroy,     . 

. 

84 

Professor  Huxley, 

. 

85 

Laveleye  on  The  Future 

of  Religion, 

86 

Madame  Ackermann, 

. 

86 

F.  "W.  H.  Myers  on  The  Disenchantment  of  France, 

87 

J.  Sully, 

• 

87 

LECTURE  III. 

THE  THEISTIC  POSTULA  TE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

Introductoey — 

Christianity  a  theistic  system,  ..... 

Only  three  monotheistic  religions,        .... 

Theism  involves  a  supernatural  view  of  the  world, 

Froude  and  Carlyle,      ...... 

The  strength  of  Christian  Theism  is  its  connection  with  Revelation 
Christ's  teaching  embraces  the  affirmations  of  a  complete  Theism, 
The  absoluteness  of  God,  ..... 

The  natural  attributes,  ..... 

The  moral  attributes,    ...... 

The  Divine  Fatherhood,  ..... 

This  first  postulate  of  the  Christian  view— how  related  to  modern 
thought?        ........ 


91 
91 
92 
93 
93 
94 
94 
94 
95 


96 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

PAGE 

I.  The  negation  of  the  Christian  view,     .  .  .  .  .96 

The  Agnostic  negation — why  so  regarded  ?  .  .  .  .96 

1.  It  negates  the  Christian  view  of  God  as  self-revealing,        .       97 

2.  The  denial  of  evidence  of  God's  existence  tantamount  to 

denial  of  His  existence,     .  .  .  .  .98 

Mr.  Spencer's  admission  of  the  Ultimate  Reality  or  Power  ;  contra- 
dictions of  his  view,  .  .  .  .  .  .98 

The  "  Inscrutable  Power  "  of  Mr.  Spencer,  not,  after  all,  unknow- 
able, ........     100 

Development  of  the  system  by  Mr.  Fiske  into  Theism,        .  .102 

The    incomprehensibility  of   God    recognised   by   Scripture    and 
theology,    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .102 

The  Agnostic  Icnows  that  God  cannot  reveal  Himself  in  relation,     .     103 

II.  Positive  evidence  for  the  Christian  view,         ....     104 

1.  Concessions  of  the  evolutionary  philosophy,     .  .  .     105 

(1)  Monotheism  alone  tenable,        .  .  .  .105 

(2)  The  Power  which  works  in  the  universe  is  the  source 

of  a  rational  order,    .  .  .  .  .106 

(3)  It  is  the  source  also  of  a  moral  order,   .  .  .     108 
The  term  "Personal"  as  applied  to  God,          .             .             .     Ill 

2.  The  theoretic  ''proofs"  for  the   existence  of  God — how  far 

valid?  .  .  .  .  .  .  .112 

Meaning  of  **  proof"  as  applied  to  the  Divine  existence,  .     113 

(1)  The  cosmological  argument,  .  .  .  .114 
The  world  not  the  necessary  Being  shown — 

i.  From  the  contingency  of  its  existence,  .  .     115 

ii.  From  the  dependency  of  its  parts,  .  .115 

iii.  From  its  temporal  succession  of  effects. — Need 

for  a  First  Cause,  .  .  .  .115 

Objection  to  this  argument :  it  does  not  show  what 

the  necessary  Being  is,  .  .  .  .116 

The  religious  experience  corresponding  to  this  proof — 
the  consciousness  of  absolute  dependence,    .  .116 

(2)  The  teleological  or  design  argument,  .  .  .117 
Kant's  criticism,  .  .  .  .  .117 
Argument  against  design  from  evolution,  .  .118 
Evolution  probable — what  it  implies,  .  .  .119 
Two  views  of  evolution  :  criticism,  .  .  .119 
What  the  facts  of  evolution  point  to,  .  .  .121 
Wider    form   of   this    argument    (order,    plan,    law, 

etc.),  .  .  .  .  .  .122 

(3)  The  ontological  argument,  .  .  .  .123 
The  Anselmic  form,  and  Kant's  criticism,        .            .123 


XIV 


CONTENTS, 


II.  Positive  evidence  for  the  Christian  view  {continiitd) — 
(3)  The  ontological  argument  {continued) — 

New  form  of  this  argument ;  thought  the  necessary 
prins  of  existence,    .  .  .  .  .124 

"Rational  Realism,"   .  .  .  .  .126 

'""""^--The  religious  experience  corresponding  to  the  teleo- 
logical  and  ontological  arguments — sense  of  the 
Divine  in  nature,      .  .  .  .  .127 

How  is  this  sense  of  the  Divine  to  be  explained  ?         .     128 

III.  The  moral  argument — contrast  with  theoretic  proofs,              .  .     129 
...  Kant's  statement  of  this  argument,  .....     129 

God  a  postulate  of  the  "practical  reason,"  .             .            .  .     130 

Moral  law,  moral  principles,  and  ethical  ideal,  point  back  to  an 

eternal  ground,      .             .            .             .             .             .  .131 

Religious  experience  corresponding  to  the  moral  proof,         .  .132 

Conclusion,    .             .            .             .             .             .            .  .     132 


Appendix  to  Lecture  III. 


GOD    AS    RELIGIOUS    POSTULATE. 

God  as  a  postulate  of  the  soul,  .... 

What  is  demanded  in  a  theory  of  religion,  . 

Definition  of  religion,  ..... 

1.  The  soul,  as  personal,  demands  a  personal  object,  . 

2.  The  soul,  as  thinking  spirit,  demands  an  infinite  object, 

3.  The  soul,  as  ethical,  demands  an  ethical  object, 

4.  The  soul,  as  intelligence,  demands  a  knowable  object, 


134 
134 
135 
135 
135 
136 
137 


LECTUKE  IV. 

THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 
IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  31  AN. 

Introductory — 

Second  postulate  of  the  Christian  view  :  man  made  in  the  image  of 

God, 141 

The  kinship  of  God  and  man  implied  in  every  Christian  doc- 
trine, ........     141 

Specially  implied  in  the  Incarnation,   .  .  .  .  .143 

The  doctrine  of  man  closely  linked  with  the  doctrine  of  nature,  ,     143 


CONTENTS.  XV 


I.  The  natural  basis — tlie  doctrine  of  creation,    . 
Practical  significance  of  this  doctrine, 
The  consonance  of  this  doctrine  with  reason  :  three  oppositions— 

1.  The  opposition  of  Dualism  (Martineau,  Mill),  etc.,  , 

2.  The  opposition   of  Pantheism  :    logical  derivation  of  the 

universe  (Spinoza,  Hegel,  etc.),    . 

3.  The  opposition  of  Atheism :  self- existence  and  eternity  of 

the  world,  ..... 

Evidences  of  a  beginning — 

(1)  Primordial  elements,     .... 

(2)  Evolution  involves  a  beginning  in  time, 

(3)  Breaks  in  the  chain  of  development  (Wallace,  etc.] 
Difficulties  of  the  doctrine  of  creation  in  time, 
Proposed  solutions  of  these  difficulties — 

(1)  Theory  of  eternal  creation, 

(2)  Denial  of  the  existence  of  time  to  God, 

(3)  Solution  to  be  sought  in  the  right  adjustment  of  the 

relations  of  time  to  eternity. 
The  motive  and  end  of  creation  (Kant,  Lotze,  etc.). 


PAGE 

144 
144 

146 

147 

149 

149 
150 
151 
152 

153 
153 

155 
155 


II.  The  nature  of  man,  and  his  place  in  creation  :  man  the  final  cause  of 

the  world,  ........     157 

Agreement  of  Scripture  and  science  on  this  point,    .  .  .     158 

Qualification  of  this  position  :  man  not  the  hoU  end,  .  .159 

Man  the  link  between  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  :  his  body  the 
link  with  nature,   .......     160 

The  spiritual  nature  of  man  :  Biblical  doctrine,        .  .  .161 

Man  as  bearing  the  image  of  God — 

1.  His  rational  image,  ......     164 

^^^.^^  2.  His  moral  image — (1)  the  power  of  moral  knowledge,  (2) 
the  power  of  moral  freedom,  (3)  the  possession  of  moral 
affections,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .164 

3.  His  image  in  sovereignty,      .....     166 

The  potential  infinitude  of  man's  nature  :  a  shadow  of  God's,  .     166 

^^.^  The  Christian  view  opposed  to  Materialism  :  materialistic  tendency 

of  modern  science,  .  .  .  .  .  .167 

Materialism  and  consciousness — 

1.  Grosser  form  of  Materialism  :    mind  and  brain  identified 

(Moleschott,  Vogt,  etc.),  .  .  .  .168 

Rejection  of  this  view  by  modern  scientific  writers,  .     168 

2.  Newer  form  of  Materialism — Monism  (Strauss,  Haeckel, 

etc.), 169 

Use  of  materialistic  terminology  by  British  scientists,  .     170 

Ambiguity  of  the  term  "  matter  "  in  Tyndall,  etc.,  .     173 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

II.  The  nature  of  man,  and  his  place  in  creation  {continued) — 

^    The  materialistic  theory  breaks  down  in  three  respects — 

1.  Inconsistency  with  "  conservation  of  energy,"  .     172 

2.  Contrast  of  the  two  sets  of  phenomena  in  the  laws  of 

their  succession,         .  .  .  .  .173 

3.  Irreconcilability    with    self-consciousness    and    moral 

freedom,         ......     175 

Ultimate  refutation  of  Materialism :  matter  itself  needs  thought 
to  explain  it,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     176 

III.  Man  as  made  in  the  image  of  God,  constituted  for  immortality  : 

Biblical  aspect  postponed,  .  .  .  .  .177 

Voice  of  nature  on  this  subject,         .  .  .  .  .177 

Modern  rejection  of  doctrine  of  a  future  life,  .  .  .177 

Scientific  plea  for  this  rejection  ;  its  untenableness,  .  .179 

Disposition  on  part  of  believers  in  Eevelation  to  minimise  the 
natural  evidence  for  immortality,  .  .  .  .  .180 

If  man  constituted  for  immortality,  the  fact  must  show  itself  in  his 
nature  and  capacities,         .  .  .  .  .  .180 

1.  Universal  prevalence  of  belief  in  a  future  state.     Spencer's 

theory ;  its  inadequacy,     .  .  .  .  .181 

2.  Rational  grounds  for  this  belief  :  nature  of  evidence,  .     183 

(1)  The  scale  of  man's  nature  too  great  for  his  present 

scene  of  existence,  .  .  .  .  .184 

(2)  Immortality  involved  in  the  view  of  life  as  moral 

discipline,  .  .  .  .  .  .186 

(3)  Immortality  the  solution  of  the  enigmas  of  life  ;  its 

incompleteness,  inequities,  etc.,    .  .  186 

(4)  Only  under  the  influence  of  this  hope  do  the  human 

faculties    find    their    highest    scope    and    play 

(J.  S.  Mill), 187 

Conclusion,    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .188 


LECTURE  Y. 

THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  REGARD  TO 
THE  SIN  AND  DISORDER  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Introductory — 

Third  postulate  of  the  Christian  view — the  sin  and  disorder  of  the 
world,         ....... 

The  problem  of  natural  and  moral  evil, 

— -  Christianity  does  not  create  this  problem,  but  helps  to  solve  it, 

T^atural  evil  implicated  with  moral  evil. 

The  problem  exists  only  for  Theism,     .... 


193 
193 
194 
194 
194 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

PAOB 

I.  The  problem  of  moral  evil :  conflict  of  Christian  and  modern  views  on 

this  subject,  .......     195 

Respects  in  which  the  modern  view  comes  to  the  support  of  the 
Christian  view — 

1.  Stronger  recognition  of  the  universal  prevalence  of  evil,       .     195 

2.  Abandonment  of  shallow  views  of  the  inherent  goodness  of 

human  nature,        .  .  .  .  .  .196 

3.  Recognition  of  the  organic  j)rinciple  in  human  life :  Heredity,  198 
Modern  view  and  the  Ritschlian  denial  of  original  sin,  .  .199 
Fundamental   difference  between  the  Christian  and  the  modern 

view,  ........     200 

The  Christian  idea  of  sin  as  that  which  absolutely  ought  not  to  be  : 

its  presuppositions,  ......     200 

Sin  as  revolt  from  God,  and  setting  up  of  false  independence,  .     201 

Effects  of  sin  :  subversion  of  true  relation  of  natural  and  spiritual,  201 
Verification  of  the  Christian  view  in  consciousness,  .  .     202 

Sin  in  the  Christian  view  not  something  natural,  necessary,  and 

normal,  but  the  result  of  a  free  act  of  the  creature,  .  .     203 

Theories  of  sin  opposed  to  the  Christian  view — 

1.  Theories  Avhich  seek  the  ground  of  evil  in  the  constitution 

of  the  world,       .  .  .  .  .  .204 

2.  Theories  which  seek  the  explanation  of  evil  in  the  nature  of 

man — 

(1)  Metaphysical  theories  of  sin,    ....  205 

(2)  Ethical  and  would-be  Christian  theories,         .  .  205 

(3)  Evolutionary  theories :  lower  and  higher,  .  .  206 
Sin  in  all  these  theories  made  something  necessary,  .  .  207 
Attempts  to  disclaim  this  conclusion  : 

Hegel, ■    .     208 

Schleiermacher,      .  .  .  .  .  .  .     208 

Lipsius,      .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .208 

■  Ritschl,       ........     208: 

Weakening  or  destruction  ol  idea  of  guilt,    ....     209 

Theories  of  Schleiermacher,  Lipsius,  and  Ritsclil,     .  .  .     209 

Differences  between  the  Christian  and  the  modern  view  depend  on 
theory  of  origin,     .......     210 

Theory  of  man's  original  brutishness,  ....     210 

Impossibility  of  reconciling  the  Christian  view  with  this  theory  : 
relation  of  narrative  of  Fall,  .....     212 

Do  facts  of  anthropology  contradict  the  Christian  view  ?      .  .     213 

The  "missing  link,"  .  .  .  .  .  .213 

No  necessary  conflict  with  theory  of  evolution,         .  .  .     213 

Man  the  beginning  of  a  new  kingdom,  .  .  .  .214 

Does  archaeology  prove  the  originally  savage  condition  of  man  ?      .214 

b 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

I.  The  problem  of  moral  evil  (continued) — 

Do  savages  represent  the  original  state  ?        .  .  .  .214 

Evidence  of  early  ci^dlisations,  .....     214 

Does  religion  progress  from  Fetishism  to  Monotheism  ?        .  .215 

Relation  of  Christian  view  to  modem  theories  of  the  antiquity  of 

man,  ........     215 

Present  state  of  this  question,  .  .  .  .  .     21 6 

Science  does  not  negative  the  idea  of  a  pure  beginning  of  the  race  : 

the  Biblical  account  of  primeval  man,        .  .  .  .216 

II.  The  problem  of  natural  evil :  connection  with  moral  evil,       .  .     217 

Natural  evil  in  the  inanimate  world,  ....     218 

Natural  evil  in  the  organic  world  : 

(1)  Non-sentient  (vegetable),  .....     219 

(2)  Sentient  (animal).  .  .  .  ,  .  .219 
Relation  to  justice  and  goodness  of  the  Creator —  -  -  .219 
Is  the  world  of  sentient  beings  an  unhappy  one  ?  .  .  .  220 
The  Biblical  view  of  nature  predominatingly  optimistic,  .  .  220 
Real  question — Is  there  to  be  room  for  gradation  of  existences  ?  .  221 
The  question  altered  when  we  come  to  self-conscious,  rational  man,  222 
The  disciplinary  benefits  of  suffering,  etc.,  not  a  complete  solution  : 

discussion  of  this  theory,  ......     222 

Connection  of  natural  evil  with  sin  :  nature  and  admissibility  of 

this  connection,     .......     225 

The  deeper  question — Is  nature  itself  in  a  normal  condition  ?  .     226 

The  Pauline  view  :  what  it  implies — 

1.  Theory  that  nature  had  from  the  first  a  teleological  relation 

to  human  sin,  ......     227 

2.  Paul's  doctrine  of  the  subjection  of  the  creation  to  "  vanity,"      227 

3.  The  earth  in  bondage  to  corruption  through  man's  presence 

and  sin  upon  it,         .....  .     228 

III.  Culmination  of  this  problem  in  the  question  of  the  relation  of  sin  to 

death,     ........     228 

This  relation  not  an  accident  of  the  Christian  view,  but  enters  into 

its  essence,  .......     229 

The  original  mortality  of  man  proved  neither  by  death  in  the 

animal  creation  nor  by  its  present  universality,  .  .230 

Distinction  of  man  from  the  animals,  ....     230 

Man  created  for  immortality,  .  .  .  •  .  .     230 

Death  the  sundering  of  essential  parts  of  his  being :   therefore 

abnormal,  .......     230 

The  Biblical  doctrine  of  immortality  rests — 

1.  On  the  Biblical  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  man  as  a  compound 

being,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .231 


CONTENTS, 


XIX 


III.  Culmination  of  this  problem  in  the  question  of  the  relation  of  sin  to 
death  {continued) — 
The  Biblical  doctrine  of  immortality  rests  {continued) — 

2.  On  the  idea  that  it  was  no  part  of  the  Creator's  design  that 

body  and  soul  should  be  separated,     .... 

3.  On  the  thought  that  soul  in  separation  from  the  body  is  in  a 

state  of  imperfection  and  mutilation, 

4.  The  true  immortality  is  through  Kedemption,  and  embraces 

the  resurrection  of  the  body,  .... 


232 


232 


232 


Appendix  to  Lecture  V. 


immortality :  embraces 


THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   DOCTRINE   OF   IMMORTALITY. 

Bearing  on  previous  discussion  on  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  immortality, 

This  doctrine  has  been  sought  for  in  a  wrong  direction, 

The  Hebrew  view  of  Sheol,  . 

Egyptians,  Babylonians,  etc., 

Gloomy  associations  in  Old  Testament, 

Passages  in  illustration — 

Genesis,  etc.,         .  ,  .  . 

Job, 

The  Psalms,  .... 

Hezekiah,  .... 

Not  in  this  direction  we  are  to  look  for  doctrine  of 

idea  of  relation  to  God,  and  resurrection, 
Immortality  in  Eden, 

New  inbreaking  of  a  law  of  immortality  in  Enoch, 
This  the  type  of  Biblical  immortality  :  embraces  the  whole  personality,    . 
Examination  of  view  that  the  doctrine  of  Resurrection  a  late  one  among 

the  Hebrews  :  derived  from  Parsism,  etc.,  .... 

Counter  thesis  :  this  doctrine  runs  all  through  Old  Testament, 

Beliefs  of  Egyptians,  ....... 

The  Babylonians  and  Assyrians,       ...... 

The  Persians.     Doubtful  if  this  doctrine  is  found  in  older  parts  of  the 

Zend-Avesta,         .  . 

Few  and  ambiguous  references  in  Zoroastrian  writings  do  not  explain  the 

prominence  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Old  Testament, 
Review  of  evidence  :  the  earlier  books,         ..... 

Abraham,      ......♦•• 

The  words  of  Moses — "  I  am  the  God,"  etc.,  .... 

The  later  books  :  Job,  Psalms,  Prophets,     ..... 

Book  of  Job  picture  of  patriarchal  conditions,  .... 

Job  xiv. :  anticipation  of  resurrection,         ..... 


234 
234 
234 
234 
235 

236 
236 
236 
236 

236 
237 
237 
237 

237 
237 
238 
238 

238 

238 
239 
239 
240 
240 
240 
240 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


Dr.  Davidson's  view,  .... 

Job  xix.  25-27  :  resurrection  again  implied, 

"  In  "  or  *'  without "  the  body, 

The  Psalms  :  Dr.  Cheyne's  views,    . 

The  passages  that  teach  immortality  imply  resurrection— 

Ps.  xvi.  8-11,        . 

Ps.  xvii.  15,  ....  . 

Ps.  xlix.  14,  15,    . 

References  to  Enoch  story, 

Ps.  Ixxiii.  24,        . 
The  prophetic  books  :  the  idea  of  resurrection  familiar — 

Hosea  vi.  2,  xiii.  14,         . 

Isaiah  xxv.  6,  8,  xxvi.  19,  etc.,    . 

Dan.  xii.  2,  ....  . 

After  all  only  a  hope,  founded  on  believer's  relation  to  God 

Dr.  Davidson  quoted,       ..... 


PACK 

241 
241 
241 
242 

243 
243 
243 
243 
244 

244 
245 

245 

245 


LECTURE  VI. 

THE  CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW— 
THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST. 

Introductoey — 

Completion  of  argument  in  second  Lecture,      ....  249 
A"\Tiy  cannot  we  rest  in  a  lower  conception  of  Christ  ? .             .             .  249 
A  priori  objection  to  the  Incarnation  based  on  Christ's  lowliness,       .  250 
Comparison  with  the  assertions  of  modern  theologians  and  evolu- 
tionists,         ........  250 

I.  Testimony  of  the  apostolic  age  as  throwing  light  on  Christ's  own 

claims,  .........     251 

Prerogatives  which  the  early  church  assigned  to  Christ,  .  .     252 

The  claim  to  judge  the  world,       .....     253 

Modern  agreement  as  to  general  teaching  of  New  Testament — the 
Johannine  WTitings,      .......     253 

Martineau  on  the  teaching  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,         .  .  .     253 

The  Epistles  of  Paul — 

1.  The  undisputed  Epistles,  .....     254 
The  "  Heavenly  Man  "  theory,  ....     255 

2.  The  later  Epistles — Christology  of  Philippians,   Colossians, 

etc.,  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .256 

Substantial  unity  of  doctrine  in  later  and  earlier  Epistles, 
Paul    assumes  that  his  doctrine   is  the  same    as    that    of 

Churches  to  which  he.  writes,  .... 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

PAOB 

I.  Testimony  of  the  apostolic  age  [continued) — 

The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  an  independent  witness,  .            .             .  258 

The  Apocalypse  as  representing  a  Jewish- Christian  standpoint,           .  259 
The  doctrine  of  the  Apocalypse  as  high  as  John's  or  Paul's — Reuss, 
Pfleiderer,      .            .            .            .            .            .            .            .259 

The  Petrine  and  Minor  Epistles, — 

Peter,             ........  261 

James,           .             .             .             .             .             .             .            .  261 

Jude,              ........  261 

Discourses  in  the  Acts,             ......  262 

Conclusion  : — the  supernatural  view  of  Christ's  Person  established  in 

first  generation  of  believers,  ......  262 

II.  The  testimony  of  the  Gospels— Christ  in  the  Fourth  Gospel               .  263 

The  question  of  genuineness  ;  relation  to  Philo,  etc. ,  .             .            .  263 

Do  the  Synoptics  give  a  different  view  ?           .            .            .            .  264 

The  Christ  of  the  Synoptics  also  a  supernatural  Being,           .            .  264 

His  humanity — higher  aspects  of  His  Person,       .             .             .  264 

Criticism  cannot  expunge  the  supernatural  element,        .            .  265 

It  belongs  to  the  essence  of  the  representation,     .             .             .  265 

1.  The  claiTns  of  Jesus — the  titles  "Son  of  Man,"  and  "Son 

of  God," 265 

Relation  to  kingdom  of  God,  etc. ,  . ,           .             .             .  266 

His  eschatological  claims,  .....  266 

Peter's  confession,  etc.,       .....  267 

2.  Representation  of  the  character  of  Christ ; — His  sinless- 

ness,        .......  267 

Attested  by  the  earliest  witnesses,              .             .             .  267 

Borne  out  by  the  picture  in  the  Synoptics,  .  .  267 
Admitted  by  modern  theologians — Vatke,  Schleiermacher, 

Lipsius,  etc.,       .            .            .            .            .            .  268 

3.  The  Works  of  Jesus  in  keeping  with  His  claims,    .            •  268 

4.  The  Resurrection  of  Jesus — the  Trinitarian  formula,  etc. ,  269 
The  Synoptic    representation  of  Christ  in  keeping    with  the 

apostolic  estimate  of  His  Person,           ....  270 

The  latter  needs  the  former  for  its  basis,  ....  270 
Conclusion  : — The  facts  of  Christ's  Revelation  require  the  super- 
natural view  of  His  Person  :    impossibility  of  evading  this 

claim,     ........  271 

III.  Doctrinal  aspects  of  the  Incarnation  :  proposed  reconstructions,         .  272 

In  what  sense  modern  theories  ascribe  "Godhead "  to  Christ,             .  272 
Two  questions  in  regard  to  these  theories — 

1.  First   question  —  Are   these  theories    tenable  on   their  own 

merits?  .  .  .  .  .  ,  .275 


xxii  CONTENTS. 

PACK 

III.  Doctrinal  aspects  of  the  Incarnation  {continued) — 
Two  classes  to  be  distinguished — 

(1)  Those    which  do  not    presuppose   a    transcendental 

ground  for  the  predicate  "Godhead"  applied  to 
Christ — Rothe,  Ritschl,  Lipsius,  etc.,  .  .     275 

(2)  Those  which  do  presuppose  a  transcendental  ground 

— Rothe,  Beyschlag,              .             .  .            .276 

Inconsistencies  of  Rothe's  theory,          .  .            .     277 

Adds  a  new  Person  to  the  Godhead,      .  .             .     278 

Difficulties    of    Beyschlag's    theory    of   a  heavenly 

humanity,      .             .            .            .  .             .278 

2.  Second  question  —  Do  these  theories  do  justice  to  the  facts 

of  Christ's  Revelation  ?  .  .  .  .  .278 

"What  is  not,  and  what  is,  true  Incarnation,     .  .  .279 

3.  Consideration  of  Kenotic  theories  (Phil.  ii.  7),  .  .     280 
Central  difficulty  of  these  theories,       ....     281 

Relation  of  preceding  discussion  to  the  early  Christological  decisions — 
Has  modern  thought  no  further  light  to  throw  on  Christological 
problems  ?     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     282 

Advances  in  modern  speculation,  .....     282 

The  question  of  the  impersonality  of  Christ's  humanity,  .  .     282 

Objections  to  the  older  view  as  affecting  the  reality  and  integrity  of 
the  humanity,  .......     283 

Examination  of  these  objections : 

1.  Can  we  attribute  an  independent  personality  to  the  humanity 

of  Christ? .283 

2.  Does  the  Divine  personality  detract  from  the  integrity  and 

reality  of  Christ's  human  nature  ?      .  .  .  .  284 

Possible  solution  of  these  questions  in  the  original  relation  of 

the  Divine  Logos  to  humanity,  ....  284 

This  doctrine  does  not  deny  a  true   human  personality  to 

Christ,  but  only  its  non-identity  with  the  Divine,     .  .  285 

The  Incarnation  to  be  studied  in  the  light  of  its  revealed  ends,  .  285 


Appendix  to  Lecture  VI. 

THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  JESUS. 

Modern  interest  in  this  question,     .  .  .  .  .  .287 

Main  points  discussed — 

1.  Fundamental  fact  in  Christ's  consciousness,    ....     287 

2.  When  did  Christ  realise  His  Messianic  calling  ?  .  .  .288 

3.  Was  Christ's  "plan  "  one  and  the  same  throughout  ?  .  .288 

4.  Import  and  origin  of  titles  "  Son  of  Man  "  and  "  Son  of  God,"  .     288 


CONTENTS. 

xxiii 

PAGB 

Views  of  leading  writers, — 

Beyschlag, 

.     289 

H.  Schmidt, 

.     291 

Grau, 

.     293 

Baldensperger, 

.     294 

Wendt,     . 

.     296 

LECTURE  VII. 

HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD  INVOLVED  IN  THE  INCARNATION 
—THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  PLAN  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Introductory — 

The  point  now  reached,  ......     301 

Recapitulation  of  defective  theories,      .....     301 

I.  Higher  concept  of  God  involved  in  the  Incarnation— God  as  triune — 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  not  a  mere  mystery  :  testimonies  to  its 
value,  ........     302 

This  doctrine  the  result  of  an  induction  from  the  facts  of  Revela- 
tion, .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .303 

How  far  is  this  doctrine  anticipated  in  the  Old  Testament  ?  .     304 

Significance  of  the  plural  Name,  ....     304 

1.  The  Angel  of  Jehovah,   .  .  .  .  .305 

2.  The  doctrine  of  the  Spirit,  .  .  .  .305 

3.  The  Divine  Wisdom,  etc.,  .  .  .  .306 
The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  involving  distinctions  in  the  Divine 

essence,       ........  306 

Objection  on  this  score— "One  and  Three,".             .            .             .  306 

Unity   and    plurality  in   everything  —  substance  and  attributes, 

mind,  life,  etc.,      .......  307 

Ultimate  ground  of  the  universe  not  a  distinctionless  unity,            .  307 

Tlie  Eleatic  view  in  Greek  philosophy  and  its  results,          .            .  307 

Attempts  to  overcome  the  difficulty  in  Philo,  etc.,  .             .             .  307 

Modern  speculative  philosophy,         .....  308 

Real  objection  must  be  to  the  distinctions  as  personal,         .,            .  308 

Drawbacks  of  the  word  "Person,"    .....  308 

Early  use  of  terms  :  Augustine  on  this,         ....  308 

Need  of  the  expression,          ......  309 

Proof  that  distinctions  of  this  kind  are  implied — 

The  Trinitarian  formula,    ......  309 

The  Incarnation  of  the  Sou,           .....  309 

Testimonies  about  the  Spirit,         .             ,            .             .             .  309 


xxiv  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I.  Higher  concept  of  God  involved  in  the  Incarnation  {continued) — 

Alternative  view — an  economical  Trinity,     .  .  .  .310 

Difficulties  of  this  view  :  ancient  and  modern  Sabellianisra,  .     310 

Relations  of  the  doctrine  to  rational  thought,  .  .  .311 

The  admission  of  a  rational  element  involved  in  the  attempt  to 

explain  it  from  philosophy,  .  .  .  .  .311 

Psychological  analogies  in  Augustine  and  others,      .  .  .312 

Their  defects,  313 

Suggested  analogy  in  the  mind's  power  of  self-converse,       .  .   ,313 

Relation  of  the  doctrine  to  self-consciousness,  etc.     Its  value  on 

this  side,    ........     313 

1.  The  deduction  from  knowledge,         .  .  .  .314 
Theory  that  the  Divine  self- consciousness  may  be  mediated 

by  the  idea  of  the  world,  .....  314 
Objections  to  this — 

(1)  It  makes  God  dependent  on  the  world,  .  .  314 

(2)  The  object  only  ideal,  ....  314 

(3)  The  object  a  finite  one,  ....  314 

(4)  The  object  not  personal,        ....  315 
The  Christian  view — the  Divine  consciousness  self-mediated 

through  the  Son  and  Spirit,       .             .  .             .315 

2.  The  deduction  from  love,       .             .            .  .             .315 
The  opposite  hypothesis — love  in  a  solitary  God,  .             .     316 

3.  Deduction  from  the  Divine   Fatherhood  —  God  eternally 

Father, .     317 

R.  H.  Hutton  on  this,  .  .  .  .  .317 

4.  Bearing  of  the  Trinity  on  God's  relation  to  the  world,  .     318 
The  safeguard  against  Deism  and  Pantheism,            .  .318 

II.  The  Scripture  view  brings  creation  and  Redemption  into  line — con- 
sequences of  this,   .  .  .  .  .  .  .319 

Relation  of  the  Incarnation  to  the  plan  of  the  world,  .  .     319 

Would  there  have  been  an  Incarnation  had  man  not  sinned  ?  .319 

This  question  apt  to  be  negatived  as  presumptuous,  .  .     320 

But  1.  It  rises  naturally  from  the  subject,    ....     320 

2.  Has  often  pressed  itself  on  the  mind  of  the  Church,  .     320 

3.  Not   unsuggested  by  certain  of  the  teachings  of   Scrip- 

ture, .  .  .  .  .  .  .320 

The  history  of  the  question,  ......  320 

Strong  point  against  this  theory — the  constant  connection  of  In- 
carnation with  Redemption,           .....  321 

Passages  which  suggest  a  wider  view,             ....  321 

Difficulty  arising  from  too  abstract  a  view  of  the  Divine  plan,         .  322 
God's  plan  one  throughout,  and  includes  the  foresight  and  per- 
mission of  sin,         .......  323 


CONTENTS,  XXV 


PAGK 


II.  The    Scripture   view   brings   creation    and   Redemption   into    line 
{continued) — 
Relation  of  Calvinist  and  Arminian  to  this  question,  .  .     323 

Creation  built  upon  Redemption  lines,  ....     323 

Great  weight  on  this  question  to  be  attached  to  the  revealed  end 

— the  gathering  up  of  all  things  in  Christ,  .  .  .     324 

This  end  not  arbitrary,  but  one   for  which   the  universe  must 

originally  have  been  fitted,  .....     324 

Dr.  P.  Fairbairn  substantially  agrees  with  this  view,  .  .324 

Harmony  of  Scripture  with  this  view — 

1.  The  Scriptures  know   of  only  one  undivided  purpose   of 

God, 

2.  Assert  a  direct  relation  of  the  Son  with  creation, 

3.  Represent  Christ  as  the  final  cause  of  creation, 

4.  God's  purpose    actually  tends    to   the  unification  of   all 

things  in  Christ,    . 
Bishop  Lightfoot  on  this. 
Summary  and  conclusion, 
This  view  reflects  light  on  Christ's  Person 
Is  in  harmony  with  previous  postulates. 


325 
325 
326 

326 
326 
327 
327 
327 


LECTURE  YIII. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN. 

Introductoey — 

Christianity  a  religion  of  Redemption,  .  .  .  .331 

Views  which  this  sets  aside,      .  .  .  .  .  .331 

Comparison  and  contrast  with  Buddhism,         ....     332 

Special  question — The  connection  of  Redemption  with  the  suflerings 

and  death  of  Christ,  .  .  .  .  .  .332 

I.  Scripture  testimony  on  this  subject — the  apostolic  witness,     .  .     333 

Does  Christ's  teaching  agree  with  that  of  the  apostles  ?    Ground 

on  which  this  is  denied,  .....     334 

Insufficiency  of  these  grounds,  .  .  .  .  .335 

Proof   that   Christ   attached   a    redemptive    significance    to    His 

death,     .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .336 

Grounds  on  which  the  apostolic  Church  proceeded — 

1.  The    objective    facts    of   Christ's    death,    resurrection,    etc. 

These  needed  an  explanation,  ....     338 

2.  Christ's  sayings  on  the  meaning  and  necessity  of  His  death,    .     338 

3.  The  teaching  of  the   Old   Covenant  as  throwing  light    on 

Christ's  work,  .  .  .  .  .  .339 


xxvi  CONTENTS. 

PACK 

I.  Scripture  testimony  on  this  subject  (continued) — 

3.  The  teaching  of  the  Old  Covenant  (continued) — 

(1)  Its  prophecies — Isa.  liii.,  ....     339 

(2)  The  Law  as  begetting  a  sense  of  sin,  and  feeling  of 

the  need  of  Atonement,  ....     339 

(3)  The  sacrificial  economy,  ....     339 

II.  Explanation  of   the    redemptive   significance  of   Christ's   death — 

theories  of  Atonement,       ......  340 

Legitimacy  of  inquiry  into  this  subject,        ....  340 

Elements  of  truth  in  all  theories,      .....  341 

Modern  desire  to  connect  the  Atonement  with  spiritual  laws,           .  341 
The  Atonement  considered  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Incarna- 
tion—    .            .             .             .             .            .            .            .341 

Theories  which  emphasise  this  point  of  view,            .            .             .  342 

Three  points  taken  for  granted  in  all  Christian  theories  of  Re- 
demption— 

1.  Removal  of  guilt — forgiveness,  ....     343 

2.  Breaking  down  of  sinner's  enmity,        .  .  .  ,343 

3.  Fellowship  of  life  with  Christ,  .  .  .  .343 

Theories  differ  as  they  attach  themselves  to  one  or  another  of  these 
points  of  view, — 

1.  Redemption  as  reception  into  Christ's  fellowship,         .  .     343 

2.  Christ's  work  as  the  supreme  moral  dynamic,  .  .  .     344 

3.  Christ's  work  as  an  expiation,  .  .  .  .344 

More  detailed  examination  of  theories — 

1.  Theories  of  fellowship  :   Schleiermacher,  etc.,  .  .  .     344 

Representative  relation  of  Christ,      ....     344 
Sehleiermacher's  view  of  Christ's  sufferings,  .  .     345 

2,  Theories  based  on  idea  of  sympathy  :   Bushnell,  .  .346 

Real  substitution  involves  sympathetic  identification  :  Sub- 
stitutionary forces  in  life,  .....  347 

Points  in  which  this  theory  comes  short,      .  .  .  348 

Sympathy  shown — in  doing  what  ?   .  .  .  .  349 

Removes   Christ's  work   from   its  unique  position  —  non-  1 
recognition  of  its  expiatory  character,        .             .             .  350 ' 
Dr.  Bushnell's  later  modification  of  his  view,            ,            ,  350 
Striking  admissions  in  his  earlier  work,        .            .             .  351 
S.  Theories  based  on  idea  of  vocation  :   RitschI,   .            .            .  352 
Theories  which  recognise  an  objective  element  in  the  Atone- 
ment :  in  what  does  it  consist  ?      .            .             .             .  355| 

4.  Theories  based  on  idea  of  self-surrender  of  holy  will  to  God  : 

Maurice,  etc.,         ......  355 

True  elements  in  these  theories  :  their  defects,         .  .  356 


CONTENTS.  xxvii 

PAOR 

II.  Explanation    of    the    redemptive    significance    of    Christ's    death 
(continued) — 
More  detailed  examination  of  theories  (continued) — 

5.  Theories  which  recognise  a  relation  to  guilt :   Dorner,  etc.,     .     358 
Campbell's  theory  of  vicarious  repentance  and  confession,    .     358 
Deeper  elements    in   Campbell's  view  —  the    ''Amen"  in 

response  to  God's  judgment  on  sin,  .  .  .     359' 

This  response  rendered  under  actual  experience  of  the  jienal 
consequences  of  sin,  .  .  .  .  .360 

Christ's  sufferings  viewed  as  expiatory,         .  .  .     3&2 

Objections   to   this  view — the  innocent  suffering  for  the 
guilty,        .......     3^3 

This,  in  itself  a  fact  of  common  experience,  springs  from  the 
organic  connection  of  humanity,    ....     363 

The  real  question  —  How  should  such  sufferings  become 
expiatory  for  others  ?.....     364 

The  answer  suggested,  .  .  .  .  .364 

Recapitulation  and  conclusion,  ....     364 

The  Incarnate  Son  alone  could  achieve  Redemption,  .     366 


LECTUEE  IX. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

Introductoey — 

Necessity  of  an  eschatology,     .  .  .  ,      *     .  .  ZQ^ 

Eschatology  in  philosophy  and  science,  ....  369 

The  Christian  view  eschatological  because  teleological,  ,  .  370 


I.  The  astronomical  objection  to  Christianity, 
Reply  :  Are  the  worlds  inhabited  ? 
The  objection  a  quantitative  one, 
The  bearing  of  sin  on  this  question, 
Mr.  Spencer's  objection, 


371 
372 
374 
375 
375 


The  issues  of  Redemption  not  confined  to  this  planet,  .  .     376 

II.  Principles  of  interpretation  of  eschatological  prophecy,  .  .     376 

Ritschl's  rejection  of  eschatology,  .....     377 

Ritschl  and  Kaftan  on  the  kingdom  of  God,     ....     377 

The  nearer  aim  of  Christianity  —  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  on  earth,  .......     378 

Relation  of  this  to  modern  social  movements,  ....     378 

History  has  its  goal — transition  to  eschatology  proper,  .  .379 

The  positive  and  bright  side  of  the  Christian  view       .  .  .379 


XXVlll 


CONTENTS, 


II.  Principles  of  interpretation  of  eschatological  prophecy  {continued) — 
Three  things  clear — 

1.  The  aim  of  God  is  conformity  to  the  image  of  the  Son,         .     380 

2.  This  includes  likeness  to  His  glorious  body :  the  resurrec- 

tion,       .  .  .  .  .  .  .380 

(1)  The  Redemption  of  the  body  not  an  accident,  but 

an  essential  part  of  the  Christian  view,        .  .     380 

(2)  This  doctrine  not  exposed  to  some  of  the  objections 

made  to  it,    .  .  .  .  .  .     381 

N  True  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  —  bodily  identity, 

what?  .  .  .  .  .  .381 

Paul's  analogy,  .  .  .  .  .382 

(3)  Not  a  resurrection  at  death,  but  a  future  event,  .     382 

3.  The  perfecting  of  the  Church  carries  with  it  the  perfecting 

of  nature,  ......     383 

Pictorial  and  scenic  elements  : 

1.  The  personal  Advent — how  to  be  interpreted  ?  .  .     383 
Beyschlag's  view,       ......     383 

The    Coming    a   process    in  which    many  elements    flow 

together,    .......     384 

Still,  a  personal  Coming  is  implied,  .  .  .  .     384 

2.  The  general  Judgment,  .....     385 

Its  certainty,  ......     385 

Parabolic  character  of  descriptions,    ....     386 

III.  The  dark  side  of  this  question — the  destiny  of  the  wicked,      .  .     386 
Three  theories  on  this  subject — 

1.  Dogmatic  Universalism,         .  .  .  .  .386 

2.  The  doctrine  of  Annihilation  ;  Conditional  Immortality,  .     387 

3.  The  doctrine  of  Eternal  Punishment,  .  .  .     387 
Fundamental  positions  laid  down — 

1.  The  principle  of  certain  retribution  for  sin,  .  .  .     388 

2.  Need  for  distinguishing  between  what  Scripture  teaches 

and  subjects  on  which  it  is  simply  silent,  .  .     388 

3.  A  larger  calculus  needed  than  we  at  present  possess,  .     389 
Reasons  for  a  large  view  of  the  issues  of  the  Chiistian 

scheme,      .......  389 

The  question  of  the  heathen,  ....  389 

Degrees  of  responsibility  even  under  gospel  teaching,  .  389 

Criticism  of  theories — 

1.  Scripture  does  not  warrant  dogmatic  Universalism, .             .  390 
The  passages  adduced  in  favour  of  this  view  not  decisive,    .  391 

2.  Scripture  does  not  warrant  Annihilation,      .  .  .  391 
The  hypothesis  abstractly  possible,  but   not    scripturally 

justified,  ......     392 


CONTENTS,  xxix 

PACK 

III.  Tlie  dark  side  of  this  question  (continued) — 
Criticism  of  theories  {continued) — 

Edward  White's  theory  criticised — 

(1)  Its  supposed  scriptural  support,  .  .  .     392 
Internal  contradictions  of  the  theory  ;  the  wicked  not 

destroyed  at  death,  .....     392 

(2)  Shuts  out  gradations  of  punishment,  or  escapes  this 

only  by  inconsistency,  ....     393 

(3)  Its    non  -  biblical    use    of   the    terms    "life"    and 

"death,"      .  .  .  .  .  .393 

Mr.  White  not  satisfied  with  his  own  theory— seeks 

relief  in  Future  Probation,  ....  393 

Approximation  to  Universalism,          .             .             .  394 

3.  The  theory  of  Future  Probation,       ....  394 

Its  wide  acceptance  in  recent  times,  ....  394 

Based  more  on  general  principles  than  on  definite  scriptural 

information,            ......  395 

Facts  which  suggest  caution — 

(1)  Concentration  of  every  ray  of  exhortation  and  appeal 

into  the  present,       .....     395 

(2)  The  judgment  invariably  represented  as  proceeding 

on  the  data  of  this  life,         ....     395 

(3)  The  silence  of  Scripture  on  future  probation  :  limits 

of  the  application  of  1  Pet.  iii.  19,  20  ;  iv.  6,  .  396 

Yet  the  issues  of  life  must  somehow  be  brought  to 

a  bearing  in  the  unseen,  ....  396 
Result  —  We  have  not  the  elements  of  a  complete 

solution,        ......  397 

Conclusion  of  Lectures,   ......  397 


Appendix. 

the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  god. 

Relation  of  this  subject  to  the  course,  .....     401 

I.  The  place  of  this  idea  in  theology — recent  views,         .  .  .  401 

Reasons  for  not  treating  the  kingdom  of  God  as  the  all-embracing 

conception,    ........  402 

1.  It  is  not  so  presented  in  the  New  Testament,  .  .  402 

2.  Not  an  idea  which  can  be  treated  as  a  fixed  quantity,  .  403 

3.  Found  difficult  in  practice  to  bring  all  theology  under  it,     .  404 

4.  The  true    place   of   this    idea    is   as  a  teleological    con- 

ception,     .......     404 


XXX 


CONTENTS. 


II.  The  teaching  of  Jesus  on  the  kingdom  of  God, 

1.  The  kingdom,  a  present,  developing  reality, 

2.  The  nature  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth, 

(1)  The  religious  and  ethical  side  of   this  kingdom 

alone  is  made  prominent, 

(2)  Yet  a  principle  which  affects  society  in  all  its  rela- 

tions,        .... 
The  recognition  of  this  by  Christ,    . 

(•a)  The  view  of  the  Old  Testament  presup- 
posed— Christ's  relation  to  the  world  and 
to  society,  .... 

(&)  The  world  in  its  existing  form  hostile,  but 
capable  of  Redemption  and  renewal, 

(c)  Christ's  positive  recognition  of  the  Divine 
order  of  society,  and  the  duty  of  His 
disciples  to  work  in  it,  and  save  it, 

(3)  The  relation  of  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God 

to  that  of  the  Church,      .... 


405 
405 
406 

406 

407 
407 


407 


408 


408 


409 


III.  The  kingdom  of  God  and  the  new  life  of  humanity,    .  .  .  410 

1.  The  principle  of  this  life  is  Christ  risen  and  exalted,  .  410 

*  2.  This  new  life  is  (1)  a  life  in  the  individual  soul,  (2)  in 

society,       .......  411 

3.  The  kingdom  of  God  as  the  centre  of  God's  Providence,       .  412 


INDEX   TO   NOTES. 


Lecture  I. 

PAOB 

fUustrations  of  the  word  "Weltanschauung"  and  related  terms,    .             .  415 

Classification  of  "Weltanschauungen,"       .....  417 

Unconscious  Metaphysic,      .......  421 

Scope  of  the  modern  Scientific  Claim,  .  .  .  .  .421 

Antagonism  of  Christian  and  "Modern"  views  of  the  world — anti -super- 
naturalism  of  the  latter,   .......  422 

Internal  conflicts  of  the  "Modern"  view,    .             .             ,             .             ,  424 
Uniqueness  of  the  Old  Testament  view,       .             .             .            .             .427 

Origin  of  the  Old  Testament  view — Relation  to  critical  theories,    .             .  430 

Nature  and  Definition  of  Religion,  ......  431 

Undogmatic  Religion,           .......  437 

-^Esthetic  theories  of  Religion,          ......  438 

Schleiermacher  on  Dogmatics,          ......  439 

Religious  and  theoretic  Knowledge,              .....  440 

Ritschl  on  Religion  and  Philosophy,             .....  441 

The  Hegelian  theory  of  Religion,     ......  442 

Lecture  II. 
The  central  place  of  Christ  in  His  Religion,  .  .  .  .     444 

The  defeat  of  Arianism,        .  .  .  .  .  .  .445 

Modern  Unitarianism,  .......     446 

Concessions  of  Ritschlians  on  the  Person  of  Christ,  .  .  .     448 

The  weakness  of  Deism,       .  .  .  .  .  .  .     450 

Weakness  of  modern  Liberal  Protestantism,  .  .  .  .451 

Christianity  and  the  idea  of  Progress,  .....     453 

The  prevalence  of  Pessimism,  ......     454 

The  literature  of  Pessimism,  ......     455 

Transition  from  Pessimism  to  Theism — Hartmann  and  Karl  Peters,  .     456 

Materialism  in  Germany,      .......     457 

Fichte's  later  Philosophy,     .......     458 

Modern  theory  of  Revelation,  .  .  .  .  .  .     460 

The  reasonableness  of  Revelation,    .  .  .  .  .  .461 

The  Ritschliau  doctrine  of  Revelation,        .....     462 


XXXll 


INDEX  TO  NOTES. 


Lecture  III. 

PAGE 

Primitive  Fetisliism  and  Ghost  worship,      .             .            .             .             .466 

Old  Testament  Monotheism, 

.     469 

Hegel's  idea  of  God, 

.     471 

Defects  of  the  Neo-Hegelian  view,  . 

.     471 

Kant  and  the  Cosmological  Argument, 

.     474 

Kant  and  the  Teleological  Argument, 

.     475 

Schools  of  Evolutionists, 

.     476 

Kant  on  the  Ontological  Argument, 

.     478 

Rational  Realism,     .... 

.     479 

Lecture  IV. 

The  Creation  History,          .             .             .             .             .             .             .480 

Evolution  in  inorganic  Nature— The  Nebular  Hypothesis, 

.     482 

The  Hypothesis  of  Cycles,   ..... 

.     483 

"Eternal  Creation," 

.     485. 

Eternity  and  Time,  . 

.     487 

Man  the  head  of  Creation,   . 

.     488 

Mind  and  Mechanical  Causation,     . 

.     489 

Mind  and  Cerebral  Activity, 

.     490 

Schleiermacher  and  Immortality,    . 

.     493 

Lecture  V. 

Defects  in  Creation  :  an  argument  against  Theism,              .            .             .     495 

Dualistic  theories  of  the  Origin  of  Evil, 

.     496 

Hegel's  Doctrine  of  Sin, 

.     497 

Ritschl's  Doctrine  of  Guilt, . 

.     498 

Alleged  primitive  Savagery  of  mankind. 

.     499 

Early  Monotheistic  Ideas,    . 

.     501 

The  Antiquity  of  Man  and  Geological  Time, 

.     504 

The  connection  of  Sin  and  Death,    . 

.     506 

Lecture  VI. 

The  doctrine  of  Pre-existence,          ......     508 

Philo  and  the  Fourth  Gospel,           .             .             .             .             .             .510 

The  Resurrection  of  Christ  and  the  reality  of  His  Divine  Claim,    .             .     512 

Lecture  VII. 

Recent  theories  of  the  Trinity,         .             .             .             .            .            .516 

Dr.  Martineau  as  a  Trinitarian, 

.     521 

Lecture  VI 1 1. 
The  Germ  theory  of  Justification,    . 

Lecture  IX. 
Renan's  Eschatology, 

The  Gospel  and  the  vastness  of  Creation,     . 
Alleged  Pauline  Universalism, 


524 


527 
528 
530 


LECTURE  I. 


W(^t  Cfjrtsttan  Fieto  of  t|}e  amorlti  in  ffinxeral 


"Jesus  Christ  is  the  centre  of  all,  and  the  goal  to  which  all  tends."— 
Pascal. 

"If  we  carry  back  the  antagonisms  of  the  present  to  their  ultimate 
principle,  we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  it  is  of  a  religious  kind.  The 
way  in  which  a  man  thinks  of  God  and  the  world,  and  their  relation  to 
one  another,  is  decisive  for  the  whole  tendency  of  his  thought,  and  even 
in  the  questions  of  the  purely  natural  life." — Luthardt. 

"Tlie  Christian  truth,  with  the  certifying  of  which  we  have  to  do,  is 
essentially  only  one,  compact  in  itself,  vitally  interconnected, — as  such 
at  the  same  time  organic, — and  it  is  therefore  not  possible  one  should 
possess  and  retain  a  portion  of  the  same,  while  yet  not  possessing,  or 
rejecting,  the  other  portions.  On  the  contrary,  the  member  or  portion 
of  the  truth,  which  it  had  been  thought  to  appropriate  or  maintain  alone, 
would  by  this  isolating  cease  to  be  that  which  it  was  or  is  in  itself ;  it 
would  become  an  empty  form  or  husk,  from  which  the  life,  the  Christian 
reality,  has  escaped."— F.  H.  R.  Frank. 

"In  no  case  can  true  Reason  and  a  right  Faith  oppose  each  other." — 
Coleridge. 


LECTUKE    I. 

THE  CHPJSTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD  IN  GENERAL. 

I  MIGHT  briefly  define  the  object  of  the  present  Lectures  by  The  temi 
saying  that  they  aim  at  the  exhibition,  and,  as  far  as  possible  " ^^^^^^^-^ 
within  the  limits  assigned  me,  at  the  rational  vindication,  of 
what  I  have  called  in  the  title,  "  The  Christian  view  of  the 
world."  This  expression,  however,  is  itself  one  which  calls 
for  definition  and  explanation,  and  I  proceed,  in  the  first 
place,  to  give  the  explanation  that  is  needed. 

A  reader  of  the  higher  class  of  works  in  German  theology 
—  especially  those  which  deal  with  the  philosophy  of  re- 
ligion— cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  constant  recurrence 
of  a  word  for  which  he  finds  it  difficult  to  get  a  precise 
equivalent  in  English.  It  is  the  word  "  Weltanschauung," 
sometimes  interchanged  with  another  compound  of  the  same 
signification,  "  Weltansicht."  Both  words  mean  literally 
"view  of  the  world,"  but  whereas  the  phrase  in  English  is 
limited  by  associations  which  connect  it  predominatingly  with 
physical  nature,  in  German  the  word  is  not  thus  limited,  but 
has  almost  the  force  of  a  technical  term,  denoting  the  widest 
view  which  the  mind  can  take  of  things  in  the  effort  to 
grasp  them  together  as  a  whole  from  the  standpoint  of  some 
particular  philosophy  or  theology.  To  speak,  therefore,  of 
a  "  Christian  view  of  the  world "  implies  that  Christianity 
also  has  its  highest  point  of  view,  and  its  view  of  life  con- 
nected therewith,  and  that  this,  when  developed,  constitutes 
an  ordered  whole.^ 

^  See  Note  A. — Illustrations  of  the  word  "Weltanschauung" 


4..      .  TH^  CHRISTIAN.  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Need  of  com-        To  some  the  subject  which  I  have  thus  chosen  may  seem 
frehensive       uiidulv  widc    and    vague.      I   can  only   reply  that   I   have 

treatment.  .      «  •■  .  ^     ^     '^  ^  ^ 

deliberately  chosen  it  for  this  very  reason  that  it  enables 
me  to  deal  with  Christianity  in  its  entirety  or  as  a  system, 
instead  of  dealing  with  particular  aspects  or  doctrines  of  it. 
Both  methods  have  their  advantages ;  but  no  one,  I  think, 
whose  eyes  are  open  to  the  signs  of  the  times  can  fail  to 
perceive  that  if  Christianity  is  to  be  effectually  defended 
from  the  attacks  made  upon  it,  it  is  the  comprehensive 
method  which  is  rapidly  becoming  the  more  urgent.  The 
opposition  which  Christianity  has  to  encounter  is  no  longer 
confined  to  special  doctrines  or  to  points  of  supposed  conflict 
with  the  natural  sciences, — for  example,  the  relations  of 
Genesis  and  geology, — but  extends  to  the  whole  manner  of 
conceiving  of  the  world,  and  of  man's  place  in  it,  the  manner 
of  conceiving  of  the  entire  system  of  things,  natural  and 
moral,  of  which  we  form  a  part.  It  is  no  longer  an  opposition 
of  detail,  but  of  principle.  This  circumstance  necessitates 
an  equal  extension  of  the  line  of  the  defence.  It  is  the 
Christian  view  of  things  in  general  which  is  attacked,  and 
it  is  by  an  exposition  and  vindication  of  the  Christian  view 
of  things  as  a  whole  that  the  attack  can  most  successfully 
be  met. 
Viexv  of  Christ-  Everything  here,  of  course,  depends  on  the  view  we  take  of 
'LeluJl  ^^''  Christianity  itself.  The  view  indicated  in  the  title  is  that 
which  has  its  centre  in  the  Divine  and  human  Person  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  implies  the  true  Divinity  as  well  as 
the  true  humanity  of  the  Christian  Eedeemer.  This  is  a 
view  of  Christianity,  I  know,  which  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
take  for  granted,  but  must  be  prepared  in  due  course  to 
vindicate.  I  shall  not  shrink  from  the  task  which  this 
imposes  on  me,  but  would  only  at  present  point  out  that, 
for  him  who  does  accept  it,  a  very  definite  view  of  things 
/emerges.  He  who  with  his  whole  heart  believes  in  Jesus 
as  the  Son  of  God  is  thereby  committed  to  much  else  besides. 
He  is  committed  to  a  view  of  God,  to  a  view  of  man,  to  a 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  5 

view  of  SID,  to  a  view  of  Eedemption,  to  a  view  of  the  purpose 

of  God  in  creation  and  history,  to  a  view  of  human  destiny,  — 

found  only  in  Christianity.     This  forms  a  "  Weltanschauung," 

or  "  Christian  view  of  the  world,"  which  stands  in  marked 

contrast  with  theories  wrought  out  from  a  purely  philosophical  . 

or  scientific  standpoint. 

The  idea  of  the  "  Weltanschauung "  may  be  said  to  have  77^^  **^F^//^w- 
entered  prominently  into  modern  thought  through  the  influence  ^fl'^^^^^s'' '« 
of  Kant,  who  elevates  what  he  calls  the  "  Weltbegriff"  to  the  Kant,  etc, 
rank  of  the  second  of  his  Ideas  of  Pure  Reason,  assigning 
to  it  the  function  of  the  systematic  connection  of  all  our 
experiences  into  the  unity  of  a  world-whole  (Weltganz).^ 
But  the  thing  itself  is  as  old  as  the  dawn  of  reflection,  and 
is  found  in  a  cruder  or  more  advanced  form  in  every  religion 
and  philosophy  with  any  pretensions  to  a  historical  character. 
The  simplest  form  in  which  we  meet  with  it  is  in  the  rude, 
tentative  efforts  at  a  general  explanation  of  things  in  the 
cosmogonies  and  theogonies  of  most  ancient  religions,  the 
mythological  character  of  which  need  not  blind  us  to  the 
rational  motive  which  operates  in  them.^  With  the  growth 
of  philosophy,  a  new  type  of  world-view  is  developed — that 
which  attempts  to  explain  the  universe  as  a  system  by  the 
help  of  some  general  principle  or  principles  (water,  air,  number, 
etc.),  accompanied  by  the  use  of  terms  which  imply  the  con- 
ception of  an  All  or  Whole  of  things   (ra  Trdvra,  Koa-jno^; — 

^  See  Appendix  II, — The  Idea  of  the  "Weltanschaimng."  Kant  says:  "1 
name  all  transcendental  ideas,  so  far  as  they  relate  to  the  absolute  totality  in 
the  synthesis  of  phenomena,  world-notions  (Weltbegriffe),  partly  because  of  this 
very  unconditioned  totality,  on  which  also  the  notion  of  the  world -whole 
(Weltganz)  rests — which  itself  is  only  an  idea, — partly  because  they  relate  only 
to  the  synthesis  of  phenomena,  consequently  to  the  empirical  ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  absolute  totality  in  the  synthesis  of  the  conditions  of  all 
y)ossible  things  will  give  rise  to  an  ideal  of  pure  reason,  which  is  to  be  entirely 
distinguished  from  the  Avorld-notion  (Weltbegriff),  although  at  the  same  time 
it  stands  in  relation  to  it. "  .  .  .  "  The  cosmological  idea  (kosmologische  Idee) 
of  an  absolute  whole."  —  Kritik  d.  r.  Vernimft,  pp.  302,  360  (Bohn's  trans, 
pp.  256,  310).  The  references  to  Kant  throughout  are  to  Erdmann's  edition 
(1884). 

2  Cf.  Zeller  on  Hesiod's  Theogony,  Pre  -  Socratic  Philosophy,  pp.  88,  89 
(Eng.  trans.). 


6  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

attributed  to  the  Pythagoreans — mundus,  universum,  etc.)}    An 
example  from  ancient  thought  may  be  given  from  Lucretius, 
who,  in  his  famous  poem,  "  De  Eerum  Natura,"  proposes  "  to 
discourse  of  the  most  high  system  of  heaven  and  the  gods, 
and  to  open  up  the  first-beginnings  of  things,  out  of  which 
nature  gives  birth  to  all  things  and  increase  and  nourishment, 
and  into  which  nature  likewise  resolves  them  back  after  their 
destruction."  ^     The  outlines  of  his  system  are  well  known. 
By  the  aid  of  certain  first  principles — atoms  and  the  void — 
and  of  certain  assumed  laws  of  motion  and  development,  he 
seeks  to  account  for  the  existing  universe,  and  constructs  for 
himself  a  theory  on  the  lines  of  Epicurus,  which  he  thinks  satis- 
fies his  intellectual  necessities.     This  is  his  "  Weltanschauung  " 
— the  progeny  of  which  is  seen  in  the  materialistic  systems 
of  the  present  day.     A  modern  example  may  be  taken  from 
the  philosophy  of  Comte,   which,  theoretically  one  of  pure 
phenomenalism,    only    the    more    strikingly    illustrates    the 
necessity  which  thought  is  under   to  attempt  in  some  form 
a  synthesis  of  its  experience.       Comte's  standpoint  is  that 
of  despair  of    absolute  knowledge.      Yet  he    recognises  the 
tendency    in    the   mind    which    prompts    it    to   organise   its 
knowledge,  and  thinks  it  possible  to  construct  a  scheme  of 
existence  which  shall  give  practical  unity  to  life — imagina- 
tion eking   out  the   deficiencies  of    the    intellect.       In    the 
words    of    a    recent  interpreter,    "  Beneath    and    beyond  all 
the  details  in  our  ideas  of  things,  there  is  a  certain  esprit 
■d'ensemhle,  a  general  conception  of  the  world  without  and  the 
world  within,  in  which  these  details  gather  to  a  head."  ^     It 
would  not   be   easy  to   get   a  better  description  of  what  is 
meant  by  a  "  Weltanschauung  "  than  in  these  words.     The 
centre  of  unity  in  this   new   conception  of  the   universe  is 
Man.     Knowledge  is   to  be  organised  solely  with  reference 
to  its  bearings  on  the  well-being  and  progress  of  Humanity. 

1  See  Note  B.— Classification  of  "  Weltaiischaimngen." 

2  Bk.  I.  LI.  54-57  (Munro's  trans.).     Cf.  Lucretius  and  the  Atomic  Theory, 
by  Professor  John  Veitch,  p.  13.  * 

3  Caird's  Social  Philosophy  of  Comte,  p.  21 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL  7 

A    religion    even    is    provided    for    the    satisfaction    of    the 

emotional  and  imaginative  wants  of  man  in  the  worship  of       

the  same  abstraction — Humanity,  which  is  to  be  viewed 
with  affection  and  gratitude  as  a  beneficent  providence  in- 
terposed between  man  and  the  hard  pressure  of  his  outward 
conditions.  In  a  moral  respect  the  individual  is  to  find  his 
all-comprehensive  end  in  the  "  service  of  Humanity."  Thus, 
again,  we  have  a  "  Weltanschauung "  in  which  knowledge 
and  action  are  knit  up  together,  and  organised  into  a  single 
view  of  life. 

The    causes    which    lead    to  the   formation   of   "  Weltan-  Causes  of 
schauungen,"  that   is,   of   general   theories    of   the   universe, -^^^'^f"^^  "^,^-^ 

^      '  '  o  '  of  the  world, 

explanatory  of  what  it  is,  how  it  has  come  to  be  what  it  is, 
and  whither  it  tends,  lie  deep  in  the  constitution  of  human 
nature.  They  are  twofold — speculative  and  practical,  corre- 
sponding to  the  twofold  aspect  of  human  nature  as  thinking 
and  active.  On  the  theoretical  side,  the  mind  seeks  unity 
in  its  representations.  It  is  not  content  with  fragmentary 
knowledge,  but  tends  constantly  to  rise  from  facts  to  laws, 
from  laws  to  higher  laws,  from  these  to  the  highest  generalisa- 
tions possible.^  Ultimately  it  abuts  on  questions  of  origin, 
purpose,  and  destiny,  which,  as  questions  set  by  reason  to 
itself,  it  cannot,  from  its  very  nature,  refuse  at  least  to 
attempt  to  answer.^  Even  to  prove  that  an  answer  to  them 
is  impossible,  it  is  found  necessary  to  discuss  them,  and  it 
will  be  strange  if,  in  the  course  of  the  discussion,  the  dis- 
covery is  not  made,  that  underneath  the  profession  of  ne- 
science a  positive  theory  of  some  kind  after  all  lurks.^     But 

^  Cf.  Strauss— "We  proceed  from  the  isolated  circles  of  phenomena  around 
us,  from  the  stable  basis  and  the  elementary  forces,  to  vegetable  and  animal  life, 
to  the  universal  life  of  the  earth,  from  this  to  that  of  our  solar  system,  and  so 
ever  further,  till  at  last  we  have  grasped  the  entire  range  of  existence  in  a  single 
representation  ;  and  this  is  the  representation  of  the  universe." — Der  alte  und 
der  neue  Glaube,  p.  150. 

2  "As  science  becomes  more  conscious  of  its  problems  and  its  goal,  it 
struggles  the  more  strenuously  towards  the  region  where  physics  melt  into 
metaphysics." — Fairbairn,  Studies  in  the  Philosophy  and  History  of  Religion^ 
p.  88. 

^  See  Note  C. — Unconscious  Metaphysic. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 


Fondness  of 
the  age  for 
general 
theories. 


there  is  likewise  a  practical  motive  urging  to  the  considera- 
tion of  these  well-worn  questions  of  the  why,  whence,  and 
whither  ?  Looking  out  on  the  universe,  men  cannot  but 
desire  to  know  their  place  in  the  system  of  things  of  which 
they  form  a  part,  if  only  that  they  may  know  how  rightly 
to  determine  themselves  thereto.^  Is  the  constitution  of 
things  good  or  evil  ?  By  what  ultimate  principles  ought 
man  to  be  guided  in  the  framing  and  ordering  of  his  life  ? 
What  is  the  true  end  of  existence  ?  What  rational  justifica- 
tion does  the  nature  of  things  afford  for  the  higher  senti- 
ments of  duty  and  religion  ?  If  it  be  the  case,  as  the 
Agnostic  affirms,  that  light  absolutely  fails  us  on  questions  of 
origin,  cause,  and  end,  what  conception  of  life  remains  ?  Or 
assuming  that  no  higher  origin  for  life  and  mind  can  be 
postulated  than  matter  and  force,  what  revision  is  necessary 
of  current  conceptions  of  private  morality  and  social  duty  ? 

It  is  a  singular  circumstance  that,  with  all  the  distaste 
of  the  age  for  metaphysics,  the  tendency  to  the  formation  of 
world-systems,  or  general  theories  of  the  universe,  was  never 
more  powerful  than  at  the  present  day.  One  cause  of 
this,  no  doubt,  is  the  feeling  which  modern  science  itself  has 
done  so  much  to  engender  of  the  unity  which  pervades  all 
orders  of  existence.  The  naive  Polytheism  of  pagan  times, 
when  every  hill  and  fountain  was  supposed  to  have  its  special 
divinity,  is  no  longer  possible  with  modern  notions  of  the 
coherence  of  the  universe.  Everywhere  the  minds  of  men 
are  opening  to  the  conception  that,  whatever  else  the  uni- 
verse is,  it  is  one — one  set  of  laws  holds  the  whole  together 
— one  order  reigns  through  all.  Everywhere,  accordingly, 
we    see    a    straining    after    a    universal   point   of    view — a 

■^  **The  question  of  questions  for  mankind,  the  problem  which  underlies  all 
others,  and  is  more  deeply  interesting  than  any  other,  is  the  ascertainment  of 
the  place  which  man  occupies  in  nature,  and  of  his  relation  to  the  universe 
of  things.  Whence  our  race  has  come,  what  are  the  limits  of  our  power 
over  nature,  and  of  nature's  power  over  us  ?  to  what  goal  we  are  tending  ? 
are  the  problems  which  present  themselves  anew,  and  with  undiminished 
interest,  to  every  man  born  into  the  world."  —  Huxley,  Man's  Place  in 
Nature,  p.  57. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL.  9 

grouping   and   grasping  of   things   together   in    their  unity .^ 

The  philosophy  of  Mr.  Spencer,  for  example,  is  as  truly  an        

attempt  at  the  unification  of  all  knowledge  as  the  philosophy 
of  a  Hegel ;  the  evolutionist  is  as  confident  of  being  able 
to  embrace  all  that  is,  or  ever  has  been,  or  will  be  —  all 
existing  phenomena  of  nature,  history,  or  mind — in  the 
range  of  a  few  ultimate  formulas,  as  if  he  had  already  seen 
how  the  task  was  to  be  accomplished ;  the  Comtist  urges  to 
an  imaginative  in  default  of  a  real  and  objective  synthesis, 
and  rears  on  this  basis  at  once  a  social  theory  and  a  religion. 
The  mind  grows  bolder  with  the  advance  of  knowledge,  and 
hopes,  if  not  to  reach  a  final  solution  of  the  ultimate  mystery 
of  existence,  at  least  to  bring  thoroughly  under  its  dominion 
the  sphere  of  the  knowable.^ 

What  now,  it  may  be   asked,  has  Christianity  to  do  with  Relation  of 
theories,  and  questions,  and  speculations  of  this  sort  ?     As  a  ^/^^^^^^^J^'^y 
doctrine  of  salvation,  perhaps,  not  much,  but   in  its  logical  theories. 
presuppositions     and    consequences     a    great     deal    indeed. 
Christianity,  it  is  granted,  is  not  a  scientific  system,  though,  ^ 
if  its  view  of  the  world  be  true,  it  must  be  reconcilable  with 
all  that  is  certain  and  established   in  the  results  of  science. 
It  is  not  a  philosophy,  though,  if  it  be  valid,  its  fundamental 
assumptions  will  be  found  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  con- 
clusions at  which  sound  reason,  attacking  its  own  problems, 
independently    arrives.     It    is    a    religion,    historical    in    its 
origin,   and    claiming    to   rest   on   Divine   Eevelation.       But 
though    Christianity    is    neither    a    scientific   system,   nor    a 
philosophy,  it  has  yet  a  world-view  of  its  own,  to  which  it 
stands  committed,  alike  by   its   fundamental  postulate  of  a 
personal,  holy,  self-revealing  God,  and  by   its  content  as  a 

^  Cf.  Principal  Fairbairn — "The  search  for  causes,  both  efficient  and  ultimate, 
is  being  conducted  with  the  most  daring  and  unwearied  enthusiasm.  Science 
has  become  as  speculative,  as  prolific  of  physico-metaphysical  theories — as  the 
most  bewitched  metaphysician  could  desire.  .  ,  .  The  consequent  crop  of 
cosmic  speculation  has  been  of  the  most  varied  and  extensive  kind,  ranging  from 
theories  of  the  origin  of  species  to  theories  as  to  the  origin  of  the  universe. " — 
Studies,  p.  64. 

2  See  Note  D. — Scope  of  the  Modern  Scientific  Claim. 


lo        THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

\  religion  of  Eedemption — which,  therefore,  necessarily  brings 
it  into  comparison  with  the  world- views  already  referred  to.^ 
It  has,  as  every  religion  should  and  must  have,  its  own 
peculiar  interpretation  to  give  of  the  facts  of  existence ;  its 
own  way  of  looking  at,  and  accounting  for,  the  existing 
natural  and  moral  order ;  its  own  idea  of  a  world-aim,  and 
of  that  "  one  far-off  Divine  event,"  to  which,  through  slow 
and  painful  travail,  "  the  whole  creation  moves."  ^  As  thus 
binding  together  the  natural  and  moral  worlds  in  their 
highest  unity,  through  reference  to  their  ultimate  principle, 

\  God,  it  involves  a  "  Weltanschauung." 

The  Christian      It  need  not  further  be  denied  that  between  this  view  of 

and'' modern''  ^^  world  involved   in  Christianity,  and  what   is  sometimes 

views  of  the  "^ 

world.  termed    "the  modern  view    of    the    world,"   there    exists    a 

deep  and  radical  antagonism.^  This  so -called  "modern 
view  of  the  world,"  indeed,  —  and  it  is  important  to 
observe  it, — is,  strictly  speaking,  not  one  view,  but  many 
views,  —  a  group  of  views,  —  most  of  them  as  exclusive 
of  one  another  as  they  together  are  of  Christianity.*  The 
phrase,  nevertheless,  does  point  to  a  homogeneity  of  these 
various  systems — to  a  bond  of  unity  which  runs  through 
them  all,  and  holds  them  together  in  spite  of  their  many 
differences.  This  common  feature  is  their  thoroughgoing 
opposition  to  the  supernatural, — at  least  of  the  specifically 
miraculous, — their  refusal  to  recognise  anything  in  nature, 
life,  or  history,  outside  the  lines  of  natural  development. 
Between  such  a  view  of  the  world  and  Christianity,  it 
is  perfectly  correct  to  say  that  there  can  be  no  kindred- 
ship.  Those  who  think  otherwise — speculative  Theists,  e.g. 
like  Pfleiderer  —  can  only  make  good  their  contention  by 
fundamentally  altering  the  idea  of  Christianity  itself  — 
robbing  it  also  of  its  miraculous  essence  and  accompaniments. 
Whether    this    is    tenable    we    shall    consider    afterwards. 

1  Cf.  Dorner,  Syst.  of  Doct.  i.  p.  155  (Eug.  trans.). 

2  Tennyson,  In  Memoriam. 

2  See  Note  E. — Antagonism  of  Christian  and  "  Modern  "  Views  of  the  World. 
*  See  Note  F.— Internal  Conflicts  of  the  "Modern "  View. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL,  1 1 

Meanwhile  it  is  to  be  noted  that  this  at  least  is  not  the 
Christianity  of  the  New  Testament.  It  may  be  an  improved  ~  - 
and  purified  form  of  Christianity,  but  it  is  not  the  Christ- 
ianity of  Christ  and  His  apostles.  Even  if,  with  the  newer 
criticism,  we  distinguish  between  the  theology  of  Christ  and 
that  of  His  apostles — between  the  Synoptic  Gospels  and  the 
Gospel  of  John — between  the  earlier  form  of  the  synoptic 
tradition  and  supposed  later  embellishments — it  is  still  not 
to  be  disputed  that,  in  the  simplest  view  we  can  take  of  it, 
Jesus  held  and  acted  on  a  view  of  things  totally  different 
from  the  rationalistic  conception ;  while  for  him  who  accepts 
the  view  of  Christianity  indicated  in  the  title  of  these  Lec- 
tures, it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  a  view  of  things 
emerges  with  which  the  denial  of  the  supernatural  is  wholly 
incompatible. 

The  position  here  taken,  that  the   question  at  issue  be-  The  question 
tween  the  opponents  and  defenders  of  the  Christian  view  of  °^^^^  ^^/f^' 

^  ^  natural  m 

the  world  is  at  bottom  the  question  of  the  supernatural,  Christianity, 
needs  to  be  guarded  against  a  not  uncommon  misconception. 
A  good  deal  of  controversy  has  recently  taken  place  in  \ 
regard  to  certain  statements  of  Professor  Max  Miiller,  as  to 
whether  "  miracles  "  are  essential  to  Christianity.^  But  the 
issue  we  have  to  face  is  totally  misconceived  when  it  is 
turned  into  a  question  of  belief  in  this  or  that  particular 
miracle — or  of  miracles  in  general — regarded  as  mere  ex- 
ternal appendages  to  Christianity.  The  question  is  not 
about  isolated  "  miracles,"  but  about  the  whole  conception  of 
Christianity — what  it  is,  and  whether  the  supernatural  does 
not  enter  into  the  very  essence  of  it  ?  It  is  the  general 
question  of  a  supernatural  or  non-supernatural  conception  of 
the  universe.  Is  there  a  supernatural  Being — God  ?  Is 
there  a  supernatural  government  of  the  world  ?  Is  there  a 
supernatural  relation  of  God  and  man,  so  that  God  and  man 
may  have  communion  with  one  another  ?     Is  there  a  super- 

1  Cf.   Max  Miiller's  Preface  to  liis  Lectures  on  Anthropological  Religion 
(Gilford  Lectures),  1892. 


12        THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

natural  Eevelation  ?  Has  that  Eevelation  culminated  in  a 
supernatural  Person — Christ  ?  Is  there  a  supernatural  work 
in  the  souls  of  men  ?  Is  there  a  supernatural  Eedemption  ? 
Is  there  a  supernatural  hereafter  ?  It  is  these  larger  quest- 
ions that  have  to  be  settled  first,  and  then  the  question  of 
particular  miracles  will  fall  into  its  proper  place.  Neander 
has  given  admirable  expression  to  the  conception  of  Christianity 
which  is  really  at  stake  in  the  following  words  in  the  com- 
mencement of  his  History  of  the  Gliurck — "  Now  we  look  upon 
Christianity  not  as  a  power  that  has  sprung  up  out  of  the 
hidden  depths  of  man's  nature,  but  as  one  that  descended 
from  above,  when  heaven  opened  itself  anew  to  man's  long 
alienated  race ;  a  power  which,  as  both  in  its  origin  and  its 
essence  it  is  exalted  above  all  that  human  nature  can  create 
out  of  its  own  resources,  was  designed  to  impart  to  that  nature 
a  new  life,  and  to  change  it  in  its  inmost  principles.  The 
prime  source  of  this  power  is  He  whose  power  exhibits  to  us 
the  manifestation  of  it — Jesus  of  Nazareth — the  Eedeemer  of 
mankind  when  estranged  from  God  by  sin.  In  the  devotion 
of  faith  in  Him,  and  the  appropriation  of  the  truth  which 
He  revealed,  consists  the  essence  of  Christianity  and  of  that 
fellowship  of  the  Divine  life  resultiug  from  it,  which  we 
designate  by  the  name  of  the  Church."  ^  It  is  this  conception 
of  Christianity  we  have  to  come  to  an  understanding  with, 
before  the  question  of  particular  miracles  can  profitably  be 
\  discussed. 
'Relation  of  While,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  this  side  of  opposition 

to7thir^^  ^^  ^^  Christian  view  of  the  world  to  certain  "modern" 
systems  not  Conceptions  must  necessarily  receive  prominence,  I  ought,  on 
TegltfoZ^  ^^^®  ^^^^^  ^^^^^'  ^^  remark  that  it  is  far  from  my  intention 
to  represent  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  these  opposing 
systems  as  one  of  mere  negation.  This  would  be  to  overlook 
the  fact,  which  cannot  be  too  carefully  borne  in  mind,  that 
no  theory  which  has  obtained  wide  currency,  and  held 
powerful  sway  over  the  minds  of  men,  is  ever  wholly  false ; 

1  History  of  the  Church,  i.  p.  2  (Eng.  trans.). 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  13 

that,  on  the  contrary,  it  derives  what  strength  it  has  from 
some  side  or  aspect  of  truth  which  it  embodies,  and  for 
which  it  is  in  Providence  a  witness  against  the  suppression 
or  denial  of  it  in  some  counter-theory,  or  in  the  general 
doctrine  of  the  age.  No  duty  is  more  imperative  on  the 
Christian  teacher  than  that  of  showing  that  instead  of 
Christianity  being  simply  one  theory  among  the  rest,  it  is 
really  the  higher  truth  which  is  the  synthesis  and  com- 
pletion of  all  the  others, — that  view  which,  rejecting  the  error, 
takes  up  the  vitalising  elements  in  all  other  systems  and 
religions,  and  unites  them  into  a  living  organism,  with  Christ 
as  head,^  We  are  reminded  of  Milton's  famous  figure  in 
the  "  Areopagitica,"  of  the  dismemberment  of  truth, — how 
truth  was  torn  limb  from  limb,  and  her  members  were 
scattered  to  the  four  winds ;  and  how  the  lovers  of  truth, 
imitating  the  careful  search  of  Isis  for  the  body  of  Osiris, 
have  been  engaged  ever  since  in  gathering  together  the 
severed  parts,  in  order  to  unite  them  again  into  a  perfect 
whole.2  If  apologetic  is  to  be  spoken  of,  this  surely  is  the 
truest  and  best  form  of  Christian  apology — to  show  that  in 
Christianity,  as  nowhere  else,  the  severed  portions  of  truth 
found  in  all  other  systems  are  organically  united,  while  it 
completes  the  body  of  truth  by  discoveries  peculiar  to  itself. 
The  Christian  doctrine  of  God,  for  example,  may  fairly  claim 
to  be  the  synthesis  of  all  the  separate  elements  of  truth  found 
in  Agnosticism,  Pantheism,  and  Deism,  which  by  their  very 

^  Cf.  Baring-Gould — "  In  every  religion  of  tlie  world  is  to  Le  found,  distorted 
or  exaggerated,  some  great  truth,  otherwise  it  would  never  have  obtained  foot- 
hold ;  every  religious  revolution  has  been  the  struggle  of  thought  to  gain 
another  step  in  the  ladder  that  reaches  to  heaven.  That  which  we  ask  of 
Revelation  is  that  it  sliall  take  up  all  these  varieties  into  itself,  not  that  it 
shall  supplant  them  ;  and  show  how  that  at  which  each  of  them  aimed,  hoW' 
ever  dimly  and  indistinctly,  has  its  interpretation  and  realisation  in  the 
objective  truth  brought  to  light  by  Revelation.  Hence  we  shall  be  able  to 
recognise  that  religion  to  be  the  true  one,  Avhich  is  the  complement  and  cor- 
rective of  all  the  wanderings  of  the  religious  instinct  in  its  elforts  to  provide 
objects  for  its  own  satisfaction." — Origin  and  Deceloj)ment  of  Reli(jious  Belief, 
ii.  Pref.  p.  10. 

2  Cf.  Areopagitica,  "English  Reprints,"  p.  56.  Clement  of  Alexandria  has 
a  similar  ligure,  Strom,  i.  13. 


14         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

antagonisms  reveal  themselves  as  one-sidednesses,  requiring  to 
be  brought  into  some  higher  harmony.  If  Agnosticism  affirms 
that  there  is  that  in  God  —  in  His  infinite  and  absolute 
existence — which  transcends  finite  comprehension,  Christian 
theology  does  the  same.  If  Pantheism  affirms  the  absolute 
immanence  of  God  in  the  world,  and  Deism  His  absolute 
transcendence  over  it,  Christianity  unites  the  two  sides  of 
the  truth  in  a  higher  concept,  maintaining  at  the  same 
time  the  Divine  immanence  and  the  Divine  transcendence.^ 
Even  Polytheism  in  its  nobler  forms  is  in  its  own  dark  way 
a  witness  for  a  truth  which  a  hard,  abstract  Monotheism, 
such  as  we  have  in  the  later  (not  the  Biblical)  Judaism,  and 
in  Mohammedanism,  ignores — the  truth,  namely,  that  God  is 
plurality  as  well  as  unity — that  in  Him  there  is  a  mani- 
foldness  of  life,  a  fulness  and  diversity  of  powers  and  mani- 
festations, such  as  is  expressed  by  the  word  Elohim.  This 
element  of  truth  in  Polytheism,  Christianity  also  takes  up, 
and  sets  in  its  proper  relation  to  the  unity  of  God  in  its 
doctrine  of  Tri-unity  —  the  concept  of  God  which  is  dis- 
tinctively the  Christian  one,  and  which  furnishes  the  surest 
safeguard  of  a  living  Theism  against  the  extremes  of  both 
Pantheism  and  Deism.^  Optimism  and  Pessimism  are  another 
pair  of  contrasts — each  in  its  abstraction  an  error,  yet  each 
a  witness  for  a  truth  which  the  other  overlooks,  and  Christ- 
ianity is  the  reconciliation  of  both.  To  take  a  last  ex- 
ample, Positivism  is  a  very  direct  negation  of  Christianity ; 
yet  in  its  strange  "  worship  of  Humanity"  is  there  not  that 
which  stretches  across  the  gulf  and  touches  hands  with  a 
religion  which  meets  the  cravings  of  the  heart  for  the  human 
in  God  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  ?  ^     It  is  the  pro- 

1  Cf.  Epli.  iv.  6.     Flint,  Antl-Theistlc  Theories,  p.  339. 

2  Cf.  Dorner,  Syst.  of  Doct.  i.  pp.  366,  367  (Eng.  trans.).  Even  Ed.  v.  Hart- 
mann  recognises  the  "deep  metapliysical  sense"  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
and  the  service  done  by  it  in  reconciling  the  Divine  immanence  and  transcend- 
ence.—iSciftsizerse^sMnj/  des  Christerdhums,  p.  108. 

3  "Altruism  "  is  another  point  of  contact  between  Comtism  and  Christianity, 
though,  indeed,  it  was  first  borrowed  from  the  latter. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  15 

vince  of  a  true  and  wise  Christian  theology  to  take  account 
of  all  this,  and  to  seek,  with  ever-increasing  enlargement  of 
vision,  the  comprehensive  view  in  which  all  factors  of  the 
truth  are  combined.  The  practical  inference  I  would  draw 
— the  very  opposite  of  that  drawn  by  others  from  the  same 
premisses — is,  that  it  is  the  unwisest  way  possible  of  dealing 
with  Christianity  to  pare  it  down,  or  seek  to  sublimate  it 
away,  as  if  it  had  no  positive  content  of  its  own ;  or,  by 
lavish  compromise  and  concession,  to  part  with  that  which 
belongs  to  its  essence.  It  is  not  in  a  blunted  and  toned- 
down  Christianity,  but  in  the  exhibition  of  the  Christian 
view  in  the  greatest  fulness  and  completeness  possible,  that 
the  ultimate  synthesis  of  the  conflicting  elements  in  the 
clash  of  systems  around  us  is  to  be  found.  / 

This  is  perhaps  the  place  to  point  out  that,  whatever  the  The  Christian 
character  of  the  world-view  involved  in  Christianity,  it  is  not  ^^^  ^^^^^ 

world  based 

one  in  all  respects  absolutely  new.     It  rests  upon,  and  carries  on  that  of  the 
forward   to  its  completion,  the   richly  concrete  view  of  the  ^^^  Testanient 

— uniqueness 

world  already  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  As  an  able  of  the  latter, 
expounder  of  Old  Testament  theology,  Hermann  Schultz,  has 
justly  said — "  There  is  absolutely  no  New  Testament  view  "*^ 
which  does  not  approve  itself  as  a  sound  and  definitive 
formation  from  an  Old  Testament  germ  —  no  truly  Old 
Testament  view  which  did  not  inwardly  press  forward  to  its 
New  Testament  fulfilment."  ^  This  is  a  phenomenon  which,  , 
I  think,  has  not  always  received  the  attention  it  deserves. 
What  are  the  main  characteristics  of  this  Old  Testament 
conception  ?  At  its  root  is  the  idea  of  a  holy,  spiritual, 
self -revealing  God,  the  free  Creator  of  the  world,  and  its 
continual  Preserver.  As  correlative  to  this,  and  springing 
out  of  it,  is  the  idea  of  man  as  a  being  made  in  God's  image, 
and  capable  of  moral  relations  and  spiritual  fellowship  with 
his  Maker ;  but  who,  through  sin,  has  turned  aside  from  the 
end  of  his  creation,  and  stands  in  need  of  Kedemption.  In 
the  heart  of  the  history,  we  have  the  idea  of  a  Divine 
^  Alttestamentliche  Theologie,  p.  48. 


1 6         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

purpose,  working  itself  out  through  the  calling  of  a  special 
nation,  for  the  ultimate  benefit  and  blessing  of  mankind. 
God's  providential  rule  extends  over  all  creatures  and  events, 
and  embraces  all  peoples  of  the  earth,  near  and  remote.  In 
view  of  the  sin  and  corruption  that  have  overspread  the 
world.  His  government  is  one  of  combined  mercy  and 
judgment;  and  His  dealings  with  Israel  in  particular  are 
preparative  to  the  introduction  of  a  better  economy,  in  which 
the  grace  already  partially  exhibited  will  be  fully  revealed. 
The  end  is  the  establishment  of  a  kingdom  of  God  under 
the  rule  of  the  Messiah,  in  which  all  national  limitations 
will  be  removed,  the  Spirit  be  poured  forth,  and  Jehovah  will 
become  the  God  of  the  whole  earth.  God  will  make  a  new 
covenant  with  His  people,  and  will  write  His  laws  by  His 
Spirit  in  their  hearts.  Under  this  happy  reign,  the  final 
triumph  of  righteousness  over  sin  will  be  accomplished,  and 
death  and  all  other  evils  will  be  abolished.  Here  is  a  very 
remarkable  "  Weltanschauung,"  the  presence  of  which  at  all 
in  the  pages  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  is  a  fact  of  no 
ordinary  significance.  In  the  comparative  history  of  re- 
\  ligions,  it  stands  quite  unique.^  Speculations  on  the  world 
and  its  origin  are  seen  growing  up  in  the  schools  of  philo- 
sophy; but  on  the  ground  of  religion  there  is  nothing  to 
compare  with  this.  The  lower  religions.  Fetishism  and  the 
like,  have  of  course  nothing  of  the  nature  of  a  developed 
world-view.  The  rudiments  of  such  a  view  in  the  older 
nature-religions  are  crude,  confused,  polytheistic — mixed  up 
abundantly  with  mythological  elements.  Brahmanism  and 
Buddhism  rest  on  a  metaphysical  foundation ;  they  are  as 
truly  philosophical  systems  as  the  atomistic  or  pantheistic 
theories  of  the  Greek  schools,  or  the  systems  of  Schopenhauer 
and  Hartmann  in  our  own  day.  And  the  philosophy  they 
inculcate  is  a  philosophy  of  despair ;  they  contain  no  spring 
of  hope  or  progress.  Zoroastrianism,  with  its  profound 
realisation  of  the  conflict  of  good  and   evil  in  the  universe, 

^  See  Kote  G.  — UiiicLueness  of  the  Old  Testament  View. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  17 

perhaps  comes  nearest  to  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament, 
yet  is  severed  from  it  by  an  immense  gulf.  I  refer  only 
to  its  pervading  dualism,  its  reverence  for  physical  elements, 
its  confusion  of  natural  and  moral  evil — above  all,  to  its 
total  lack  of  the  idea  of  historical  Eevelation.^  The  Biblical 
conception  is  separated  from  every  other  by  its  monotheistic 
basis,  its  unique  clearness,  its  organic  unity,  its  moral 
character,  and  its  teleological  aim.^  It  does  not  matter  for 
the  purposes  of  this  argument  what  dates  we  assign  to  the 
books  of  the  Old  Testament  in  which  these  views  are  found — 
whether  we  attribute  them,  with  the  critics,  to  the  age  of  the 
prophets,  or  to  any  other.  These  views  are  at  least  there  many 
centuries  before  the  Christian  age  began,  and  they  are  found 
nowhere  else  than  on  the  soil  of  Israel.  This  is  the  singular 
fact  the  critic  has  to  face,  and  we  cannot  profess  to  wonder 
that,  impartially  studying  it,  voices  should  be  heard  from  the 
midst  of  the  advanced  school  itself  unhesitatingly  declaring, 
Date  your  books  when  you  will,  this  religion  is  not  explicable 
save  on  the  hypothesis  of  Eevelation !  ^ 

The  general  drift  and  object  of  these  Lectures  should  now.  General  drift 
I  think,  be  apparent.     From  the  conditions  of  this  Lecture-  ^f •  1^°^^  ^^ 

'  ^^  the  Lectures. 

ship,  I  am  precluded  from  directly  entering  the  apologetic 
field.  I  feel,  however,  that  it  would  be  useless  to  discuss 
any  important  theological  subject  at  the  present  day  without 
reference  to  the  thought  and  speculation  of  the  time.  No 
other  mode  of  thought  would  enable  me  to  do  justice  to  the 
Christian  position,  and  none,  I  think,  would  be  so  interesting 
to  those  for  whom  the  Lectures  are  primarily  intended. 
This,  however,  will  be  subsidiary  to  the  main  design  of 
showing   that  there  is  a  definite   Christian   view   of  things, 

^  Cf.  the  sketch  of  Zoroastrianism  in  Introduction  to  the  Zenda vesta  in 
Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  See  also  Ebrard's  Christian  Apologetics,  ii.  pp. 
186-232.  Some  interesting  remarks  will  be  found  in  Lotze's  Mcrocoswws,  ii. 
p.  459. 

2  Dr.  Dorner  says — "Israel  has  the  idea  of  teleology  as  a  kind  of  soul." — 
Syst.  of  Doct.  i.  p.  274  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  See  Note  H. — Origin  of  the  Old  Testament  View — Relation  to  Critical 
Theories. 


1 8         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WO  RID. 

which  has  a  character,  coherence,  and  unity  of  its  own,  and 
stands  in  sharp  contrast  with  counter-theories  and  specula- 
tions, and  that  this  world-view  has  the  stamp  of  reason  and 
reality  upon  itself,  and  can  amply  justify  itself  at  the  bar 
both  of  history  and  of  experience.  I  shall  endeavour  to 
show  that  the  Christian  view  of  things  forms  a  logical 
whole  which  cannot  be  infringed  on,  or  accepted  or  rejected 
piecemeal,  but  stands  or  falls  in  its  integrity,  and  can  only 
suffer  from  attempts  at  amalgamation  or  compromise  with 
theories  which  rest  on  totally  distinct  bases.  I  hope  thus  to 
make  clear  at  least  the  true  nature  of  the  issues  involved  in 
a  comparison  of  the  Christian  and  modern  views,  and  I  shall 
be  glad  if  I  can  in  any  way  contribute  to  the  elucidation  of 
the  former. 

Objections  m         Two  objections   may  be   taken  in  limine,  to  the  course  I 
'™"1^'  propose  to  follow,  and  it  is  proper  at  this  stage  that  I  should 

logy  of  feeling,  givc  them  somc  attention. 

I.  The  first  objection  is  taken  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
theology  of  feeling,  and  amounts  to  a  denial  of  our  right  to 
speak  of  a  Christian  "  Weltanschauung  "  at  all ;  indeed,  to 
assume  that  Christianity  has  a  definite  doctrinal  content  of 
any  kind.^  This  class  of  objectors  would  rule  the  cognitive 
element  out  of  religion  altogether.  Keligion,  it  is  frequently 
alleged,  has  nothing  to  do  with  notions  of  the  intellect,  but 
only  with  states  and  dispositions  of  the  heart.  Theories  and 
doctrines  are  no  essential  part  of  it,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a 
bane  and  injury,  and  hindrance  to  its  free  development  and 
progress.  Those  who  speak  thus  sometimes  do  so  in  the 
interests  of  a  theory  which  would  seek  the  essence  of  religion 
'in  certain  instincts,  or  sentiments,  or  emotions,  which  are 
supposed  to  be  universal  and  indestructible  in  the  human 
race,  and  to  constitute  the  imperishable  and  undecaying  sub- 
stance of  all  religions — the  emotions,  e.g.,  of  awe  or  wonder, 
or  reverence  or  dependence,  awakened  by  the  impression  of 

1  See  Note  I. — Nature  and  Definition  of  Reliarion. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  19 

the  immensity  or  mystery  of  the  universe ;  while  the  ideas 
and  beliefs  connected  with  these  emotions  are  regarded  as  ~  ' 
but  the  accidents  of  a  particular  stage  of  culture,  and  as 
possessing  no  independent  value.  They  are  at  best  the 
variegated  moulds  into  which  this  emotional  life  of  the  spirit 
has  for  the  time  being  poured  itself — the  envelopes  and 
vehicles  through  which  it  seeks  for  itself  preservation  and 
expression.  All  religions,  from  this  impartial  standpoint, 
Christianity  included,  are  equally  Divine  and  equally  human. 
But  even  those  who  recognise  a  higher  origin  for  the  Christian 
religion  sometimes  speak  of  it  as  if  in  its  original  form  it 
was  devoid  of  all  definite  doctrinal  content ;  or  at  least  as  if 
the  doctrinal  ideas  found  in  connection  with  it  were  only 
external  wrappage  and  covering,  and  could  be  stripped  off — 
altered,  manipulated,  modified,  or  dispensed  with  at  the 
pleasure  of  the  critic — without  detriment  to  the  moral  and 
spiritual  kernel  beneath.  Christianity  is  not  given  up,  but 
there  is  the  attempt  to  refine  and  sublimate  it  till  it  is 
reduced  to  a  simple  state  of  sentiment  and  feeling ;  to  purge 
it  of  the  theoretic  element  till  nothing  is  left  but  the 
vaguest  residuum  of  doctrinal  opinion.  Agreeing  with  this 
party  in  their  aversion  to  doctrine,  yet  occupying  a  distinct 
standpoint,  are  the  ultra-spirituals,  whose  naturally  mystical 
bent  of  mind,  and  fondness  for  the  hazy  and  indefinite  in 
theological  as  in  other  thinking,  predispose  them  to  dwell 
in  the  region  of  cloudy  and  undefined  conceptions.^ 

It  scarcely  falls  within  my  province  to  inquire  how  far  Exammation 
this  theory  holds  good  in  its  general  application  to  religion,  ^  ^^^^  ^^^^ 
though  even  on  this  broad  field  it  might  easily  be  shown  that  sists  only  in 
it  involves  a  number   of  untenable  assumptions,  and  really  ^^'^^^"^^^^  ^'^'^ 

^  '  ^  feeling:  re- 

contradicts  the  idea  of  religion.     For  what  is  meant  by  thorngion  involves 
assertion  that  religion  consists  only  in  sentiment  or  feeling,  ^^'^'^•^• 
and   has  nothing  to  do   with  doctrinal  conceptions  ?       Not, 
surely,   that  religion    can   subsist   wholly   without   ideaSy   or 
cognitive    apprehension,    of    some    kind.       Eeligion,    in    the 

^  See  Note  J. — Undogmatic  Religion. 


20         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORID. 

lowest  as  well  as  in  the  highest  of  its  forms,  is  an  expres- 
sion of  the  relation  of  the  soul  to  something  beyond  itself ; 
it  involves,  therefore,  not  one  term,  but  two;  it  points  to 
the  existence  of  an  object,  and  implies  belief  in  the  reality 
of  that  object.  The  element  of  idea,  therefore,  —  or  as 
the  Germans  would  say,  "  Vorstellung," — is  inseparable  from 
it.  No  religion  has  ever  been  found  which  did  not  involve 
\  some  rudiments  of  an  objective  view.  We  may  learn  here 
even  from  the  pessimist  Hartmann,  who,  in  an  acute 
analysis  of  the  elements  of  religion,  says,  "  How  true  so- 
ever it  may  be  that  religious  feeling  forms  the  innermost 
kernel  of  religious  life,  nevertheless  that  only  is  a  true 
religious  feeling  which  is  excited  through  religious  repre- 
sentations having  a  character  of  objective  (if  only  relative) 
truth.  Eeligion  cannot  exist  without  a  religious  'Weltan- 
schauung,' and  this  not  without  the  conviction  of  its  tran- 
scendental truth."  ^ 
Religion  not  /  Nor,  again,  can  it  be  contended  that,  while  a  cognitive 
indifferent  to    element  of  somc  kind  must  be  conceded,  religion  is  indifferent 

the  character  *=' 

olits  ideas.  to  the  cliaracter  of  its  ideas — that  these  have  no  influence 
upon  the  state  of  sentiment  or  feeling.  The  religion  of  a 
Thug,  e.g.,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  religion  of  a 
Christian,  and  will  any  one  say  that  the  ideas  with  which 
the  two  religions  are  associated — the  ideas  they  respectively 
entertain  of  their  deities — have  nothing  to  do  with  this 
difference  ?  In  what  do  religions  differ  as  higher  and 
lower,  if  not  in  the  greater  or  less  purity  and  elevation  of 
the  ideas  they  entertain  of  the  Godhead,  and  the  greater  or 
^    less  purity  of  the  sentiment  to  which  these  ideas  give  birth  ? 

Religion  im-         Nor,  finally,  can  it  be  held  that  it  is  a  matter  of  unim- 

plies  belief  in  ,  ,,  ..  ,.,  -..■, 

an  objective  P^^tancc  whether  these  ideas  which  are  connected  with  a 
counterpart  religion  are  regarded  as  true — i.e.,  whether  they  are  believed 
asthetic  7iews  ^^  ^^^^^  ^^^  objective  Counterpart.  For  religion  can  as  little 
of  religion.  subsist  without  belief  in  the  reality  of  its  object,  as  it  can 
dispense  with  the  idea  of  an  object  altogether.     This  is  the 

^  Belir/hiisphilosophie,  ii.  p.  32. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL.  2 1 

weakness  of  subjective  religious  theories  like  Feuerbach's,  in 
which  religion  is  regarded  as  the  projection  of  man's  own 
egoistic  consciousness  into  the  infinite ;  or  of  those  poetic 
and  aesthetic  theories  of  religion  which  regard  the  ends  of 
religion  as  served  if  only  it  furnishes  man  with  elevating 
and  inspiring  ideals,  without  regard  to  the  question  of  how 
far  these  ideals  relate  to  an  actual  object.  Ideas  on  this 
hypothesis  are  necessary  to  religion,  and  may  be  ranked  as 
higher  and  lower,  but  have  only  a  fictitious  or  poetic  value. 
They  are  products  of  historical  evolution, — guesses,  specula- 
tions, dreams,  imaginings,  of  the  human  mind  in  regard  to 
that  which  from  the  nature  of  the  case  is  beyond  the  reach 
of  direct  knowledge,  probably  is  unknowable.  They  are 
therefore  not  material  out  of  which  anything  can  be  built 
of  a  scientific  character;  not  anything  that  can  be  brought 
to  an  objective  test;  not  anything  verifiable.  Their  sole 
value,  as  said  earlier,  is  to  serve  as  the  vehicles  and  support 
of  religious  feeling.^  But  it  is  obvious  that,  on  this  view, 
the  utility  of  religious  ideas  can  only  last  so  long  as  the 
illusion  in  connection  with  them  is  not  dispelled.  For 
religion  is  more  than  a  mere  aesthetic  gratification.  It  im- 
plies belief  in  the  existence  of  a  real  object  other  than  self, 
and  includes  a  desire  to  get  into  some  relation  with  this 
object.  The  mind  in  religion  is  in  too  earnest  a  mood  to  be  put 
off  with  mere  fancies.  The  moment  it  dawns  on  the  thoughts 
of  the  worshipper  that  the  object  he  worships  has  no  reality, 
but  is  only  an  illusion  or  fancy  of  his  own. — the  moment  he 
is  convinced  that  in  his  holiest  exercises  he  is  but  toying 
with  the  creations  of  his  own  spirit,  —  that  moment  the 
religious  relation  is  at  an  end.  Neither  philosopher  nor 
common  man  will  long  continue  bowing  down  to  an  object 
in  whose  actual  existence  he  has  ceased  to  believe.^     Nor  is 

^  See  Note  K. — ^Esthetic  Theories  of  Religion. 

2  Cf.  Dorner — "Faith  does  not  wish  to  be  a  mere  relation  to  itself,  or  to  its 
representations  and  thoughts.  That  would  simply  be  a  monologue  ;  faith 
desires  a  dialogue." — Syst.  of  Doct.  i.  p.  123  (Eng.  trans.). 

Martineau — "No:  if  religious  communion  is  reduced  to  a  monologue,  its 


22         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WO  RID, 

the  conclusion  which  seems  to  follow  from  this — that  the 
illusion  of  religion  is  one  which  the  progress  of  knowledge 
is  destined  to  destroy — evaded  by  the  concession  that  there  is 
some  dim  Unknowable,  the  consciousness  of  which  lies  at  the 
basis  of  the  religious  sentiment,  and  which  the  mind  can 
still  please  itself  by  clothing  with  the  attributes  of  God. 
For  what  is  there  in  this  indefinite  relation  to  an  Unknow- 
able, of  which  we  can  only  affirm  that  it  is  not  what  we 
think  it  to  be,  to  serve  the  purposes  of  a  religion  ?  And 
what  avails  it  to  personalise  this  conception  of  the  Absolute, 
when  we  know,  as  before,  that  this  clothing  with  personal 
attributes  is  only  subjective  illusion  ? 
Need  and  No  objection,  therefore,  can   fairly  be  taken  from  the  side 

room  for  a       q£   ^^  frencral    "Science  of    Eeligions  "    to  the  supposition 

religion  which  ^    ^  "^ 

can  give  us      that  a  religion  may  exist  which  can  give  us  a  better  know- 

true  knowledge  \^^^^  ^f  Qq^  \\^2,\).  is  to  be  found  in  the  vague  and  uncertain 

conjectures  and  fancies  of  minds  left  to  their  own  groping 

after  the  Divine.     If  such  a  religion  exists,  furnishing  clear 

and  satisfying  knowledge  of  God,   His   character,  will,  and 

ways,  His  relations  to  men,  and  tlie   purposes  of  His  grace, 

there  is  plainly  great   room  and  need  in  the   world  for  it ; 

and  the  consideration  of  its  claims  cannot  be  barred  by  the 

assumption  that   the  only  valuable  elements  in  any  religion 

must  be  those  which  it  has  in  common  with  all  religions — 

which  is  the    very  point    in   dispute.       The    only  question 

that  can  be  properly  raised   is,   Whether  Christianity  is  a 

religion  of  this  nature  ?     And   this  can  only  be  ascertained 

by  actual  inspection. 

Impossibility         Turning  next  to  those  within  the  Christian  pale  who  would 

"docVinefrfm    ^^^®  *^®  doctrinal  element  out  of  their  religion,  I  confess  I 

Christianity,    find  it  difficult  to   understand   on   what    grounds    they  can 

essence  is  extinct,  and  its  soul  is  gone.  It  is  a  living  relation,  or  it  is  nothing— 
a  response  to  the  Supreme  Reality,"— /fZm^  Substitutes  for  God,  p.  19. 

Strauss— '*  None  but  a  book  student  could  ever  imagine  that  a  creation  of  the 
brain,  woven  of  poetry  and  pliilosophy,  can  take  the  place  of  real  religion." — 
In  Kaiser  Julian,  p.  12  (quoted  by  Martineau). 

Cf.  also  Hartmann,  Religionsphilosophie,  ii.  pp.  6-9. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  23 

justify  their  procedure.  If  there  is  a  religion  in  the  world, 
which  exalts  the  office  of  teaching,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it 
is  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ.  It  has  been  frequently 
remarked  that  in  pagan  religions  the  doctrinal  element  is  at 
a  minimum — the  chief  thing  there  is  the  performance  of  a 
ritual.^  But  this  is  precisely  where  Christianity  distinguishes 
itself  from  other  religions — it  does  contain  doctrine.  It 
comes  to  men  with  definite,  positive  teaching  ;  it  claims  to 
be  the  truth ;  it  bases  religion  on  knowledge,  though  a 
knowledge  which  is  only  attainable  under  moral  conditions. 
I  do  not  see  how  any  one  can  deal  fairly  with  the  facts  as 
they  lie  before  us  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles,  without  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  New  Testament  is  full  of  doc- 
trine. The  recently  founded  science  of  "  New  Testament 
Theology,"  which  has  already  attained  to  a  position  of  such 
commanding  importance  among  the  theological  disciplines,  is 
an  unexceptionable  witness  to  the  same  fact.  And  this  is 
as  it  should  be.  A  religion  based  on  mere  feeling  is  the 
vaguest,  most  unreliable,  most  unstable  of  all  things.  A 
strong,  stable,  religious  life  can  be  built  up  on  no  other 
ground  than  that  of  intelligent  conviction.  Christianity, 
therefore,  addresses  itself  to  the  intelligence  as  well  as  to 
the  heart.  It  sounds  plausible  indeed  to  say,  Let  us  avoid 
all  doctrinal  subtleties;  let  us  keep  to  a  few  plain,  easy, 
simple  propositions,  in  regard  to  which  there  will  be  general 
agreement.  But,  unfortunately,  men  will  think  on  those  deep 
problems  which  lie  at  the  root  of  religious  belief — on  the 
nature  of  God,  His  character,  His  relations  to  the  world  and 
men,  sin,  the  means  of  deliverance  from  it,  the  end  to  which 
things  are  moving, — and  if  Christianity  does  not  give  them 


1  Cf.  Professor  R.  Smith's  Religion  of  tlie  Semites — "The  antique  religions 
had  for  the  most  part  no  creed  ;  they  consisted  entirely  of  institutions  and 
practices.  ...  In  all  the  antique  religions  mythology  takes  the  place  of 
dogma,  that  is,  the  sacred  lore  of  priests  and  people,  so  far  as  it  does  not 
consist  of  mere  rules  for  the  performance  of  religious  acts,  assumes  the  form  of 
stories  about  the  gods ;  and  these  stories  afford  the  only  explanation  that  is 
offered  of  the  precepts  of  religion  and  the  prescribed  rules  of  ritual."— P.  18. 


Objection  to 
doctrine  from 
the  spiritualit)) 
of  Christ 
ianity. 


f 


24         THi:  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

an  answer,  suited  to  their  deeper  and  more  reflective  moods, 
they  will  simply  put  it  aside  as  inadequate  for  their  needs. 
Everything  depends  here  on  what  the  Revelation  of  the 
Bible  is  supposed  to  be.  If  it  is  a  few  general  elementary 
truths  of  religion  we  are  in  search  of,  it  may  freely  be  con- 
ceded that  these  might  have  been  given  in  very  simple  form. 
But  if  we  are  to  have  a  Eevelation  such  as  the  Bible  pro- 
fesses to  convey, — a  Eevelation  high  as  the  nature  of  God, 
deep  as  the  nature  of  man,  universal  as  the  wants  of  the 
race,  which  is  to  accompany  man  through  all  the  ascending 
stages  of  his  development,  and  still  be  felt  to  be  a  power 
and  inspiration  to  him  for  further  progress, — it  is  absurd  to 
expect  that  such  a  Revelation  will  not  have  many  profound 
and  difficult  things  in  it,  and  that  it  will  not  afford  food  for 
thought  in  its  grandest    and  highest   reaches.     "  Thy  judg- 

■'  ments  are  a  great  deep."  ^  A  religion  divorced  from  earnest 
and  lofty  thought  has  always,  down  the  whole  history  of  the 
Church,  tended  to  become  weak,  jejune,  and  unwholesome ; 
while  the  intellect,  deprived  of  its  rights  within  religion,  has 
sought  its  satisfaction  without,  and  developed  into  godless 
rationalism. 

^  Christianity,  it  is  sometimes  said,  is  a  life,  not  a  creed  ; 
it  is  a  spiritual  system,  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  dog- 
matic affirmations.     But  this  is  to  confuse  two  things  essen- 

/  tially  different — Christianity  as  an  inward  principle  of  conduct, 

I  a  subjective  religious  experience,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
Christianity  as  an  objective  fact,  or  an  historic  magnitude, 
on  the  other.  But  can  even  the  life  be  produced,  or  can 
it  be  sustained  and  nourished,  without  knowledge  ?  Here 
I  cannot  forbear  the  remark  that  it  is  a  strange  idea  of 
many  who  urge  this  objection  in  the  interests  of  what  they 
conceive  to  be  a  more  spiritual  form  of  Christianity,  that 
"  spirituality "  in  a  religion  is  somehow  synonymous  with 
vagueness  and  indefiniteness ;  that  the  more  perfectly  they 
can  vaporise  or  volatilise  Christianity  into  a  nebulous  haze, 

^  Ps.  xxxvi.  6. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL  25 

in  which  nothing  can  be  perceived  distinctly,  the  nearer  they  / 
bring  it  to  the  ideal  of  a  spiritual  religion.^  This,  it  is  safe  to  )  ^ — - — — , 
say,  was  not  Paul's  idea  of  spirituality — he  by  whom  the 
distinction  of  "  letter  "  and  "  spirit  "  was  most  strongly  em- 
phasised. The  region  of  the  spiritual  was  rather  with  him, 
as  it  is  throughout  Scripture,  the  region  of  clearest  insight 
and  most  accurate  perception — of  full  and  perfect  knowledge 
{eirl'yvMai';).  His  unceasing  prayer  for  his  converts  was, 
not  that  their  minds  might  remain  in  a  state  of  hazy  in- 
distinctness, but  that  God  would  give  them  "  a  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  revelation  in  the  knowledge  of  Him,  having  the 
eyes  of  (their)  heart  enlightened,"  that  they  might  grow  up 
in  this  knowledge,  till  they  should  "  all  attain  unto  the  unity 
of  the  faith,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God,  unto 
a  full-grown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the 
fulness  of  Christ."  2  / 

But  the  objection  to  the  recognition  of  doctrine  in  Christ-  Objection  to 
ianity  may  be  raised  from  the  side  of  Christian  positivism,  do<:trinefrom 
as  well  as  from  that  of  Christian  mysticism.      Christianity,  christian 
it  will  be  here  said,  is  a  fact-revelation — it  has  its  centre  in  a  positivism, 
living  Christ,  and  not  in  a  dogmatic  creed.     And  this  in  a 
sense  is  true.     The  title  of  my  Lectures  is  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  it.     The  facts  of  Eevelation  are  before  the  doctrines 
built    on    them.     The    gospel    is    no    mere   proclamation  of 
"  eternal  truths,"  but  the   discovery  of  a   saving  purpose  of 
God  for  mankind,  executed  in  time.     But  the  doctrines  are 
the   interpretation    of    the   facts.     The    facts   do   not   stand 
blank  and  dumb  before  us,  but  have  a  voice  given  to  them, 
and  a  meaning   put  into  them.     They  are  accompanied  by 
living  speech,   which    makes   their    meaning    clear.       When 
John  declares  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  and  is 
the  Son  of  God,^  he  is  stating  a  fact,  but  h^  is  none  the  less 
enunciating  a  doctrine.     When  Paul  affirms,  "  Christ  died  for 
our  sins  according  to  the   Scriptures,"  *  he  is  proclaiming  a 

^  Cf.  Bartlett's  The  Letter  and  the  Spirit  (Barnpton  Lectures,  1888). 

2  Eph.  i.  17,  18  ;  iv,  13.  '^  1  John  iv.  2,  15.  ^  1  Cor.  xv.  3. 


26         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 


The  theology 
of  Schleier- 
mac  her. 


fact,  but  he  is  at  the  same  time  giving  an  interpretation  of 
it.  ISTo  writer  has  laid  more  stress  on  the  fact,  and  less  on 
the  doctrine,  in  primitive  Christianity  than  Professor  Har- 
nack,  yet  he  cannot  help  saying,  "  So  far  as  the  God  and 
Father  of  Jesus  Christ  is  believed  in  as  the  Almighty  Lord 
of  heaven  and  earth,  the  Christian  religion  includes  a  definite 
knowledge  of  God,  of  the  world,  and  of  the  world-aim."  ^ 
This  concedes  in  principle  all  that  I  maintain.  It  affirms 
that  the  facts  of  Christianity  rightly  understood  and  inter- 
preted, not  only  yield  special  doctrines,  but  compel  us  to 
develop  out  of  them  a  determinate  "  Weltanschauung."  This 
is  precisely  the  assertion  of  the  present  Lectures. 

If  I  refer  for  a  moment  in  this  connection  to  Schleier- 
macher,  who  may  be  named  as  the  most  distinguished 
representative  of  the  theology  of  feeling,  it  is  because  I 
think  that  the  position  of  this  remarkable  man  on  the 
question  before  us  is  frequently  misunderstood.  Schleier- 
macher's  earlier  views  are  not  unlike  some  of  those  we  have 
already  been  considering,  and  are  entangled  in  many  diffi- 
culties and  inconsistencies  in  consequence.  I  deal  here  only 
with  his  later  and  more  matured  thought,  as  represented  in  his 
work  Der  christlicJie  Glauhe.  In  it  also  piety  is  still  defined 
as  feeling.  It  is,  he  says,  neither  a  mode  of  knowing,  nor 
a  mode  of  action,  but  a  mode  of  feeling,  or  of  immediate 
self-consciousness.  It  is  the  consciousness  of  ourselves  as 
absolutely  dependent,  or,  what  comes  to  the  same  thing,  as 
standing  in  relation  with  God.^  In  his  earlier  writings  he 
had  defined  it  more  generally  as  the  immediate  feeling  of  the 
infinite  and  eternal,  the  immediate  consciousness  of  the  being 


^  Gi'undriss  der Dogmengeschichte,  i.  p.  1.  I  have  used  tlie  word  'doctrine' 
in  these  discussions,  and  kept  clear  of  '  dogma, '  which  is  often  used  with  a 
prejudice.  *  Dogma '  I  take  to  be  a  formulation  of  doctrine  stamped  with  some 
ecclesiastical  authority.  If  there  are  doctrines,  no  objection  can  reasonably  be 
taken  to  the  formulation  of  them.  It  is  beyond  my  purpose  to  discuss  the 
wider  question  of  the  utility  and  necessity  of  creeds  for  church  purposes. 
Cf.  Lect.  VI.  in  Dr.  Rainy's  Delivery  and  Development  of  Christian  Doctrine 
(Cunningham  Lectures). 

2  Der  Christ.  Glauhe,  Sects.  3  and  4. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL  27 

of  all  that  is  finite  in  the  infinite,  of  all  that  is  temporal  in 
the  eternal,  awakened  by  the  contemplation  of  the  universe.^ 
But  along  with  this  must  be  taken  into  account  Schleier- 
macher's  view  of  the  nature  of  feeling.  According  to  him 
feeling  is  less  the  opposite  of  knowledge  than  that  pure, 
original  state  of  consciousness — prior  to  both  knowledge  and 
action — out  of  which  knowledge  and  action  may  subsequently 
be  developed.^  In  Christianity  this  raw  material  of  the 
religious  consciousness  receives,  as  it  were,  a  definite  shaping 
and  content.  The  peculiarity  in  the  Christian  consciousness 
is  that  everything  in  it  is  referred  back  upon  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  Eedemption  accomplished  through  Him.^  This 
moving  back  from  the  religious  consciousness  to  the  Person 
of  the  sinless  Eedeemer  as  the  historical  cause  of  it  is 
already  a  transcending  of  the  bounds  of  a  theology  of  mere 
feeling.  Theology  is  no  longer  merely  a  description  of  states 
of  consciousness,  when  it  leads  us  out  for  an  explanation  of 
these  states  into  the  region  of  historic  fact.  But  an  equally 
important  circumstance  is  that,  while  describing  the  Christian 
consciousness  mainly  in  terms  of  feeling,  Schleiermacher  does 
not  deny  that  a  dogmatic  is  implicitly  contained  in  this  con- 
sciousness, and  is  capable  of  development  out  of  it.  His 
DcT  christliclie  Glaube  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  unfolding  of 
such  a  dogmatic.  His  position,  therefore,  is  not  ofi'hand  to 
be  identified  with  that  of  the  advocates  of  a  perfectly  un- 
dogmatic  Christianity.  These  would  rule  the  doctrinal  ele- 
ment out  of  Christianity  altogether.  But  Schleiermacher, 
while  he  lays  the  main  stress  in  the  production  of  this  con- 
sciousness of  Eedemption  in  the  believer  on  the  Person  of 
the  Eedeemer,  and  only  subordinately  on  His  teaching,  yet 
recognises  in  Christian  piety  a  positive,  given  content^  and 
out  of  this  he  evolves  a  clearly  defined  and  scientifically 
arranged  system  of  doctrines.^     It  is  to  be  regretted  that  in 

^  Cf.  Pfleiderer's  Eeligionsphilosophie,  i.  p.  308  (Eng.  trans.). 

2  Der  Christ.  Glaube,  Sect.  3.  2.  ^  Der  christ.  Glaube,  Sect.  11. 

*  See  Note  L. — Schleiermacher  on  Dogmatics. 


2  8         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WO  RID. 

the  foundation  of  his  theology — the  doctrine  of  God — 
Schleiermacher  never  broke  with  his  initial  assumption  that 
God  cannot  be  known  as  He  really  is,  but  only  as  reflected 
in  states  of  human  consciousness,  and  therefore  failed  to  lift 
his  theology  as  a  whole  out  of  the  region  of  subjectivity. 
Objection  to  A  chief  reason  probably  why  many  entertain  a  prejudice 

doctrine  drawn  against  the    admission    of    a    definite    doctrinal    content    in 

y>-^;;/ progress  .  ,,..,.  .  i       -i 

in  theology.  Christianity  is  that  they  think  it  militates  against  the  idea 
of  "  progress  "  in  theology.  How  does  the  matter  stand  in 
this  respect  ?  Growth  and  advance  of  some  kind,  of  course, 
there  is  and  must  be  in  theology.  It  cannot  be  that  the 
other  departments  of  knowledge  unceasingly  progress,  and 
theology  alone  stands  still.  No  one  familiar  with  the  history 
of  theology  will  deny  that  great  changes  have  taken  place  in 
the  shape  which  doctrines  have  assumed  in  the  course  of 
their  development,  or  will  question  that  these  changes  have 
been  determined  largely  by  the  ruling  ideas,  the  habits  of 
thought,  the  state  of  knowledge  and  culture  of  each  particular 
time.  The  dogmatic  moulds  which  were  found  adequate  for 
one  age  have  often  proved  insufficient  for  the  next,  to  which 
a  larger  horizon  of  vision  has  been  granted ;  and  have 
had  to  be  broken  up  that  new  ones  might  be  created,  more 
adapted  to  the  content  of  a  Eevelation  which  in  some  sense 
transcends  them  all.  I  recognise  therefore  to  the  full  the 
need  of  growth  and  progress  in  theology.^  Bit  by  bit  as  the 
ages  go  on  we  see  more  clearly  the  essential  lineaments  of 
the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus ;  we  learn  to  disengage  the  genuine 
truths  of  Christ's  gospel  from  human  additions  and  corrup- 
tions ;  we  apprehend  their  bearings  and  relations  with  one 
another,  and  with  new  truths,  more  distinctly ;  we  see  them 
in  new  points  of  view,  develop  and  apply  them  in  new  ways. 
All  this  is  true,  and  it  is  needful  to  remember  it,  lest  to 
temporary  points  of  view,  and   human   theories  and  formu- 

Cf.  Dr.  Rainy's  Delivery  and  Development  of  Doctrine  (Cunningham 
Lectures).  On  the  position  criticised  see,  e.g.y  Bartlett's  The  Letter  and  the 
Spirit  (Bampton  Lectures,  1888). 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL.  29 

lations,  we  attribute  an  authority  and  completeness  which  in 
no  way  belong  to  them.  But  it  does  not  by  any  means  —  - 
follow  from  this  that,  therefore,  everything  in  Christianity  is 
fluent, — that  it  has  no  fixed  starting-points,  no  definite 
basal  lines,  no  sure  and  moveless  foundations,  no  grand 
determinative  positions  which  control  and  govern  all  thought 
within  distinctively  Christian  limits, — still  less  that,  in  the 
course  of  its  long  history,  theology  has  achieved  nothing,  or 
has  reached  no  results  which  can  fairly  be  regarded  as 
settled.  This  is  the  exaggeration  on  the  other  side,  and  so 
far  from  being  helpful  to  progress  in  theology,  it  is  in  reality 
the  denial  of  its  possibility.  Progress  in  theology  implies 
that  there  is  something  to  develop — that  some  truths  at  all 
events,  relating  to  God  and  to  Divine  things,  are  ascertainable, 
and  are  capable  of  scientific  treatment.  It  is  easy  to  speak 
of  the  attempt  to  "  limit  infinite  truth  within  definite  for- 
mulae " ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  unless  some  portion  at  least 
of  this  infinite  truth  can  be  brought  within  range  of  the 
human  faculties,  theology  has  nothing  to  work  on.  It  is  a 
pseudo-science,  and  to  speak  of  progress  in  it  is  idle. 

II.  The  recent  tendency  in  continental  theology,  however,  //,  DisHnc- 
is     not    so    much     to     deny    the     existence    of    a     definite  ^^^'^  between 

a  ^^ religious''^ 

"Weltanschauung"  in  the  Bible,  as  rather  to  lay  stress  on  and  a '' t/ieo- 
the  distinction  between  a  "  religious  "  and  a  "  theoretic  "  view  of  ^^^^^  "  ^^^  ^f 

the  world — 

tlie  world — ascribing  to  Christianity  the  former  but  not  the  ^/^^  RitschUan 
latter.  This  is  the  position  of  the  school  of  Bitschl,  and  tJ^eology. 
truth  and  error  are  so  intimately  blended  in  it  that  it  is 
necessary  to  give  it  our  careful  consideration.^  That  a  sound 
distinction  underlies  the  terms  "  religious  "  and  "  theoretic  " 
is  not  to  be  disputed,  and  it  is  important  that  its  nature 
should  be  rightly  understood.  But  under  the  plea  of 
expelling  metaphysics  from  theology,  the  tendency  is  at 
present  to  revive  this  distinction  in  a  form  which  practically 
amounts  to  the  resuscitation  of  the  old  doctrine  of  a  "  double 
truth" — the  one  religious,   the  other  philosophical;   and  it 

^  See  Note  M. — Religious  and  Theoretic  Knowledge. 


30         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

is  not  held  necessary  that  even  where  the  two  overlap  they 
should  always  be  found  in  agreement.  It  is  not  simply  that 
the  two  kinds  of  knowledge  have  different  spheres,  move  in 
different  orbits,  and  have  to  do  with  a  different  class  of 
objects ;  for  this  Eitschl  at  least  denies.^  But  they  set  out 
from  different  starting-points,  judge  by  different  standards, 
and  as  a  consequence  frequently  lead  to  different  results. 
Keligious  knowledge,  Pdtschl  holds,  moves  only  in  the  sphere 
of  what  he  calls  worth-  or  value -judgments.  That  is  to 
say,  it  judges  of  things,  not  according  to  their  objective 
nature  and  relations,  but  according  to  their  value  for  us — 
according  to  their  fitness  to  meet  and  satisfy  religious 
necessities.'^  This,  logically,  would  lead  to  pure  subjectivism, 
and  in  the  hands  of  some  of  Eitschl's  followers  actually 
does  so.^  This  tendency  is  strengthened  by  the  theory  of 
knowledge  to  which  this  school  generally  has  committed 
itself, — a  theory  Kantian  in  its  origin, — which,  denying  to 
the  mind  any  power  of  knowing  things  as  they  are,  limits  it 
within  the  sphere  of  phenomenal  representations.  Eitschl 
himself  tries  hard  to  ward  off  this  reproach  of  subjectivity 
from  his  system,  and  makes  more  than  one  attempt  to  find 
a  bridge  from  the  practical  to  the  theoretic,  but  with  no  real 
success.  He  never  quits  the  ground  that  it  is  not  the 
objective  truth  of  things — which  would  carry  us  into  the 
region  of  theoretic  knowledge — which  forms  the  subject- 
matter  of  our  inquiry  in  theology,  but  solely  their  subjective 
aspects  as  related  to  our  own  states  of  pleasure  and  pain,  or 
as  helping  or  hindering  the  ends  sought  in  religion.  In  his 
doctrines  of  God  and  Christ,  of  Providence  and  miracle,  of 
sin  and  Eedemption,  as  we  shall  afterwards  see,  it  is  constantly 
this  subjective  aspect  of  things,  which  may  be  very  different 
from  our  actual  or  scientific  judgment  upon  them,  which  is 
brought  into   prominence.      Eeligion   requires,  for   example, 

1  See  passages  quoted  in  Note  N.— Eitschl  on  Religion  and  Philosophy. 
'^  See  Ritschl's  discussion  in  Eecht.  uiid  Versohmmg,  iii.  3rd  ed.  pp.  192-202; 
an  1  in  his  Theolocfie  U7id  Metaphysik. 
3  E.g.  Bender  of  Bonn. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  GENERAL.  31 

that  we  view  the  universe  from  a  teleological  and  not  from 
a  causal  standpoint,  and  therefore  that  we  postulate  God  and  ~  ~ 
Providence.  But  these  are  only  practical,  not  theoretic 
notions,  and  the  mechanical  and  causal  view  of  the  universe 
may  stand  alongside  of  them  intact.  "Miracle"  is  the  religious 
name  for  an  event  which  awakens  in  us  a  powerful  impression 
of  the  help  of  God,  but  is  not  to  be  held  as  interfering  wdth 
the  scientific  doctrine  of  the  unbroken  connection  of  nature.^ 
Not  only  are  the  two  spheres  of  knowledge  to  be  thus  kept 
apart  in  our  minds,  but  we  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  trace 
any  lines  of  relation  between  them.  We  are  not  to  be 
allowed,  e.g.,  to  seek  any  theoretic  proof  of  the  existence  of 
God ;  or  to  ask  how  special  Providence,  or  the  efficacy  of 
prayer,  or  supernatural  Eevelation,  or  miracle,  or  even  our 
own  freedom,  is  to  be  reconciled  with  the  reign  of  unbroken 
natural  causation.  All  such  inquiries  are  tabooed  as  a 
mixing  up  of  distinct  spheres  of  knowledge ;  with  the  result, 
however,  that  they  are  not  really  kept  apart,  but  that  all 
in  the  ideas  of  Providence,  miracle,  prayer,  etc.,  which  con- 
flicts with  the  theoretic  view,  is  explained  away. 

It  should  scarcely  require  much  argument  to  convince  us  Criticism  of 
that  this  proposal  to  divide  the  house  of  the  mind  into  two  ^^'.^  ^'^''^'Z'^'' 

^      ^  view — rehgi- 

compartments,  each   of  which  is   to  be  kept  sacredly  2i^d,Y\,  ous  and  theo- 
from   the   other,   is  a   perfectly   illusory   and  untenable  one.  ^^^^^  'f"^^' 

relative  truth 
'  ^  Cf.,  e.g.,  Ritschl's  remarks  on  "Miracle"  in  his  Unterricht  in  der  christ.  of  this  distinc- 
Religion,  pp.  14,  15 — "We  entirely  change  the  religious  representation  of  the  tio7i. 
miracle  if  we  measure  it  by  the  si-ientific  acceptation  of  a  connection  through  law 
of  all  natural  occurrences.  Since  this  idea  lies  outside  the  horizon  of  the  men 
of  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments,  the  miracle  never  means  for  them  an  event 
contrary  to  nature,  or  a  breaking  through  natural  law  by  Divine  caprice. 
For  this  reason,  faith  in  miracles,  in  the  sense  above  indicated  of  a  gracious 
Providence  of  God,  is  throughout  reconcilable  with  the  probability  of  the 
connection  through  natural  law  of  the  whole  world.  If  certain  narratives  of 
miracles  in  the  books  of  the  Bible  appear  to  collide  with  this  order,  it  is  neither 
a  task  of  science  to  explain  this  appearance,  or  hold  fast  the  event  as  fact ; 
nor  is  it  a  religious  task  to  recognise  these  related  occurrences  as  Divine  effects 
contrary  to  natural  laws.  .  .  .  But  out  of  his  religious  faith  will  each  man 
experience  a  miracle  in  himself,  and  in  comparison  with  this  nothing  is  less 
necessary  than  that  he  should  grub  over  the  miracles  which  others  have 
experienced." 


32         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

It  might  have  some  meaning  in  an  aesthetic  theory  of  rehgion, 
in  which   the  religious  conceptions  are   avowedly  treated  as 
pure   ideals,  but  it   can   have  none  where   the   speech  is  of 
religious  "  knowledge."     There  are  indeed  different  modes  of 
cognising   the   same   object,  as  well   as  different  stages  and 
degrees  of  real  knowledge.      If  by   "  theoretic    knowledge  " 
is   meant  only  knowledge  gained  by  the  methods  of  exact 
science,  or  by  philosophical  reflection,  then,  apart  from  religion 
altogether,  there  are  vast  fields  of  our  knowledge  which  will 
not  come  under  this  category.     The  knowledge,  for  example, 
which  we  have  of  one  another  in  the  common  intercourse  of 
life,  or  the  knowledge  which  the  ordinary  man  gathers  from 
his   experience   of  the    outward   world,  is   very  different  in 
purity  of  theoretical  character  from  the  kind  of  knowledge 
aimed  at  by  the  psychologist  or  metaphysician,  or  by  the 
student  of  science  in  his  investigations  of  nature.     It  is  as 
far   removed    as    possible   from    the   disinterested    character 
which  Eitschl  ascribes    to    the    knowledge  he   calls    "  theo- 
retical."    Yet  there  is  no  part  of  this  knowledge  in  which 
theoretic  activities  are  not  present.     The  same  processes  of 
thought  which  are  employed  in  philosophy  and  science  are 
implied  in  the  simplest  act  of  the  understanding.      In  like 
manner,  we  may  grant  that  there  is  a  distinction  of  character 
and  form — not  to  speak  of    origin — between    religious  and 
what  may  be  called  theoretic  knowledge ;  and  that  thus  far 
the  distinction  insisted  on  by  Eitschl  and  his  school  has  a 
certain  relative  justification.     Eeligion,  assuredly,   is    not    a 
theoretical   product.     It  did  not  originate  in  reasoning,  but 
in  an  immediate  perception  or  experience  of  the  Divine  in 
some  of    the  spheres  of  its   natural  or   supernatural    mani- 
festation ;  for  the  reception  of  which  again  a  native  capacity 
or  endowment   must  be   presupposed   in   the   human   spirit. 
Even  Eevelation  implies   the  possession  of  this   capacity  in 
man  to  cognise  the  manifestations  of  the  Divine  when  they 
are    set    before    him.       Originating    in    this    way,    religious 
knowledge — at  least  in  its  first  or  immediate  form — is  dis- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W  IN  GENERAL  33 

tinguished  by  certain  peculiarities.  For  one  thing,  it  is 
distinguished  from  strictly  theoretic  knowledge  by  the  prac- 
tical motive  which  obtains  in  it.  /Theoretic  knowledge  aims 
at  a  representation  of  objects  'in  their  purely  objective 
character  and  relations.  Eeligion,  on  the  other  hand,  seeks 
to  set  its  objects  before  it  in  those  lights,  and  under  those 
aspects,  which  directly  subserve  religious  ends.  With  this 
difference  of  aim  is  connected  a  difference  of  form.  Theo- 
retic knowledge  is  cool,  clear,  and  scientifically  exact. 
Eeligious  knowledge  is  touched  with  emotion,  and  moves 
largely  in  the  region  of  figurative  conception,  or  what  the 
Germans  would  call  "  Vorstellung."  In  the  first  place, 
religion,  as  having  to  do  with  the  personal  relation  of  the 
soul  to  God,  moves  in  a  sphere  in  which  the  affections  and 
emotions  are  necessarily  allowed  large  play.  Its  modes  of 
apprehension  are  therefore  warm,  lively,  impassioned,  intuitiva 
It  groups  its  material  under  the  influence  of  the  dominant 
feeling  ;  lays  holds  of  those  sides  and  relations  of  the  object 
which  affect  itself,  and  lets  the  others  drop  out  of  view ; 
leaps  over  intermediate  links  of  causation,  and  seeks  to  grasp 
the  object  at  once  in  its  essential  reality  and  inner  signifi- 
cance— in  its  relation  to  its  ultimate  cause  and  final  end. 
A  second  cause  which  leads  to  the  same  result  is  that  the 
objects  with  which  religion  has  to  deal  are  largely  tran- 
scendental— that  is,  they  lie  beyond  the  range  and  conditions 
of  our  present  experience.  A  certain  amount  of  figurative 
representation  necessarily  enters  into  the  purest  conceptions 
we  are  able  to  form  of  such  objects.,^ 

To  the  extent  now  indicated  we  may  agree  with  Eitschl  Error  oj  the 
that  religion  moves — if  he  chooses  to  phrase  it  so — in  the  ^]^^^^^^^^^ 

view — im-  ■    f 

sphere    of    value-judgments,    and    not  in    that    of    scientific  ^^^^^^27//;/ ^/      [^ 
apprehension.       But    this   is    not    to    be    interpreted    as    if  •^«^^^'?^«^ 

faith  and 

religion  did  not  affirm  the  objective  truth   of  the  ideas  it  reason,  or  re- 
entertains — as  if  its  judgments   of  value   were    not   at  the  Hgious  and 

theoretic. 
^  I  may  refer  for  further  discussion  of  tliis  subject  to  an  article  of  my  own  on 
*'Tlie  Ritschlian  Theology"  in  The  Thinker  for  August  1892. 

3 


34         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  01  THE  WORLD. 


A  theoretic 
element  ini- 
plied  in  all 
theology. 


same  time  judgments  of  truth.  Still  less  is  it  to  be  con- 
ceded that  there  is  any  necessary  divorce  between  the  mind 
in  its  practical  and  the  mind  in  its  theoretical  activities,  so 
that  propositions  may  be  affirmed  in  the  one  sphere  which 
have  no  relation  to,  can  receive  no  corroboration  from,  may 
even  be  contradicted  by,  propositions  affirmed  in  the  other. 
Thus  to  tear  asunder  faith  and  reason  is  to  render  no  service 
to  religion,  but  is  to  pave  the  way  for  theoretical  scepticism. 
It  is  in  truth  the  same  reason  which  works  in  both  spheres ; 
the  results,  therefore,  must  be  such  as  admit  of  comparison. 
If  Eitschl  would  raise  a  bar  against  any  such  comparison  of 
the  results  of  religious  thinking  with  the  conclusions  reached 
by  philosophy  and  science — leaving  each  to  work  in  its  own 
domain — a  more  just  view  of  the  subject  will  recognise  that 
this  is  impossible.  We  cannot  have  two  spheres  of  truth 
lying  side  by  side  in  the  same  mind  without  some  effort  to 
arrive  at  an  adjustment  between  them.  Still  less  is  it 
possible  for  the  mind  to  find  itself  in  conflict  with  itself, — 
on  the  one  side,  for  instance,  affirming  the  personality  of 
God,  on  the  other  denying  it ;  on  the  one  side  affirming 
freedom,  Eevelation,  miracle,  on  the  other  unbroken  natural 
causation, — and  not  do  what  it  can  to  annul  the  discrepancy. 
Nor  will  reason  in  practice  be  content  to  remain  in  this 
state  of  division  with  itself.  It  will  insist  on  its  knowledge 
being  brought  to  some  sort  of  unity,  or,  if  this  cannot  be 
done,  in  regarding  one  or  other  of  the  conflicting  propositions 
as  illusive. 

Finally,  it  is  not  sufficiently  recognised  by  Eitschl  and  his 
school  that  religion  itself,  while  in  the  first  instance  prac- 
tical, carries  in  it  also  the  impulse  to  raise  its  knowledge  to 
theoretic  form.  Faith  cannot  but  seek  to  advance  to  know- 
ledge— that  is,  to  the  reflective  and  scientific  comprehension 
of  its  own  contents.  Just  because  its  propositions  are  held  to 
be  not  only  "  judgments  of  value,"  but  to  contain  objective 
truth,  they  must  be  capable  of  being  submitted  to  theoretic 
treatment.     Eitschl  himself  recognises  the  necessity  of  con- 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  US  GENERAL.  35 

structing  a  theology  which  shall  be  adequate  to  the  contents 
of  the  Christian  Eevelation.  Only  he  would  have  it  move 
solely  within  the  region  of  faith-propositions,  or,  as  he  calls 
them,  "judgments  of  value."  Its  task  is  ended  when  it  has 
faithfully  collected,  purely  expressed,  and  internally  co- 
ordinated these  religious  affirmations.^  It  is  not  observed 
how  much  theoretic  and  critical  activity  is  already  implied 
in  this  very  process  of  collating,  sifting,  and  co-ordinating ; 
or  how  largely,  in  Eitschl's  own  case,  the  results  are 
dependent  on  the  theoretic  presuppositions  with  which  he 
sets  out  in  his  (metaphysical)  doctrine  of  knowledge,  and 
his  general  theory  of  religion.  But,  waiving  this,  it  is 
surely  vain  to  ask  theology  to  go  so  far,  and  then  say  it  is 
to  go  no  further.  Christian  science  has  many  tasks  beyond 
those  which  the  Eitschlian  limitation  would  prescribe  for  it. 
How,  for  example,  can  it  refuse  the  task  of  investigating  its 
own  grounds  of  certainty  ?  How  can  it  help  raising  the 
question  of  how  far  these  religious  conceptions,  now  brought 
to  expression  and  co-ordinated,  answer  to  objective  truth  ? 
How  can  it  avoid  asking  if  this  content  of  the  Christian 
Eevelation  receives  no  verification  from  the  laws  of  man's 
spiritual  life,  or  in  what  this  verification  consists  ?  Can  it 
help  going  back  on  its  own  presuppositions,  and  asking  what 
these  are,  and  what  kind  of  view  of  God  and  man  they 
imply  ?  How  can  it  lielp  connecting  this  truth  given  in 
Eevelation  with  truth  in  other  departments  ?  And  this 
investigation  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  choice  in  theology ;  it 
is  forced  on  it  as  a  necessity.  For  in  the  very  process  of 
collation  and  criticism  questions  arise  which  can  only  be 
solved  by  going  further  down.  Antinomies  arise  within 
theology  itself ;  the  different  sides  of  Biblical  truth  have 
to  be  harmonised  in  a  wider  conception ;  unity  of  view  has 
to  be  sought  in  a  field  where  only  parts  are  given,  and  much 
is  left  to  be  inferred.  All  this  involves  a  large  amount  of 
theoretic  treatment   in  theology,  and  may — I  should  rather 

^  Cf.  Ritschl,  Rtclit.  und  Ver.  iii.  pp.  14-16. 


36         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

say  must — result  in  showing  that  the  truths  of  Eevelation 
have  also  a  theoretic  side,  and  are  capable  of  theoretic  veri- 
fication and  corroboration.^ 

I  conclude,  therefore,  that  it  is  legitimate  to  speak  of  a 
Christian  "  Weltanschauung,"  and  that  we  are  not  debarred 
investigating  its  relations  to  theoretic  knowledge. 

^  See  Kote  0.  — The  Hegelian  Theory  of  K^ligion. 


APPENDICES  TO  LECTURE  L 


APPENDIX   I. 

SKETCH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

It  may  conduce  to  clearness  if,  having  indicated  the  general 
scope  and  purport  of  these  Lectures,  I  now  give  in  this 
Appendix  a  brief  statement  in  prepositional  form  of  what  I 
consider  the  Christian  view  of  the  world  to  be,  and  sketch 
on  the  basis  of  this  the  course  to  be  pursued  in  the  succeeding 
Lectures. 

I.  First,  then,  the  Christian  view  affirms  the  existence  of 
a  Personal,  Ethical,  Self-Eevealing  God.  It  is  thus  at  the 
outset  a  system  of  Theism,  and  as  such  is  opposed  to  all 
systems  of  Atheism,  Agnosticism,  Pantheism,  or  mere  Deism. 

II.  The  Christian  view  affirms  the  creation  of  the  world 
by  God,  His  immanent  presence  in  it^  His  transcendence  over 
it,  and  His  holy  and  wise  government  of  it  for  moral  ends. 

III.  The  Christian  view  affirms  the  spiritual  nature  and 
dignity  of  man — his  creation  in  the  Divine  image,  and 
destination  to  bear  the  likeness  of  God  in  a  perfected  relation 
of  sonship. 

IV.  The   Christian  view   affirms  the  fact  of  the  sin  and  ^ 
disorder   of  the   world,   not   as  something   belonging  to  the 


38         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORID. 

Divine  idea  of  it,  and  inhering  in  it  by  necessity,  but  as 
something  which  has  entered  it  by  the  voluntary  turning 
aside  of  man  from  his  allegiance  to  his  Creator,  and  from 
the  path  of  his  normal  development.  The  Christian  view  of 
the  world,  in  other  words,  involves  a  Fall  as  the  presupposi- 
tion of  its  doctrine  of  Eedemption  ;  whereas  the  *'  modern  " 
view  of  the  world  affirms  that  the  so-called  Fall  was  in 
reality  a  rise,  and  denies  by  consequence  the  need  of 
\  Eedemption  in  the  scriptural  sense. 

V.  The  Christian  view  affirms  the  historical  Self-Eevelation 
of  God  to  the  patriarchs  and  in  the  line  of  Israel,  and,  as 
brought  to  light  by  this,  a  gracious  purpose  of  God  for  the 
salvation  of  the  world,  centring  in  Jesus  Christ,  His  Son, 
and  the  new  Head  of  humanity. 

/  VI.  The  Christian  view  affirms  that  Jesus  Christ  w^as  not 
mere  man,  but  the  eternal  Son  of  God — a  truly  Divine 
Person — who  in  the  fulness  of  time  took  upon  Him  our 
humanity,  and  who,  on  the  ground  that  in  Him  as  man  there 
dwells  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily,  is  to  be  honoured, 
worshipped,  and  trusted,  even  as  God  is.  This  is  the  tran- 
scendent "  mystery  of  godliness  "  ^ — the  central  and  amazing 
assertion  of  the  Christian  view — by  reference  to  which  our 
relation  is  determined  to  everything  else  which  it  contains. 

Pausing  for  a  moment  on  this  truth  of  the  Incarnation, 
we  have  to  notice  its  central  place  in  the  Christian  system, 
and  how  through  its  light  every  other  doctrine  is  illuminated 
and  transformed. 

1.  The  Incarnation  sheds  new  light  on  the  nature  of  God, 
and,  in  conjunction  with  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  reveals  Him 
as  triune — Father,  Son,  and  Spirit — one  God. 

2.  The  Incarnation  sheds  new  light  on  the  doctrine  of 
creation — all  things  being  now  seen  to  be  created  by  Christ, 
as  well  as  for  Him. 

1  1  Tim.  iii.  16. 


SKETCH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  39 

3.  The  Incarnation  sheds  new  light  on  the  nature  of  man, 
alike  as  respects  its  capacity  for  union  with  the  Divine,  its 
possibilities  of  perfection,  and  the  high  destinies  awaiting  it 
in  the  future. 

4.  The  Incarnation  sheds  new  light  on  the  purpose  of  i 
God  in  the  creation  and  Eedemption  of  man  —  that  end 
being,  in  the  words  of  Paul,  "in  the  dispensation  of  the 
fulness  of  times  to  gather  together  in  one  all  things  in 
Christ,  both  which  are  in  heaven,  and  which  are  on  earth, 
even  in  Him."  ^ 

5.  The  Incarnation  sheds  new  light  on  the  permission  of  j 
sin  by  showing  the  possibility  of  Eedemption  from  it,  and 
how,   through    the    Eevelation    of    the    Divine    purposes   of 
mercy,    a    far    grander    discovery    is    made   of    the    Divine 
character,  and  far  higher  prospects  are  opened  up  for  humanity. 

VII.  The  Christian  view  affirms  the  Eedemption  of  the 
world  through  a  great  act  of  Atonement — this  Atonement  to 
be  appropriated  by  faith,  and  availing  for  all  who  do  not 
wilfully  withstand  and  reject  its  grace. 

VIII.  The  Christian  view  affirms  that  the  historical  aim 
of  Christ's  work  was  the  founding  of  a  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  which  includes  not  only  the  spiritual  salvation  of 
individuals,  but  a  new  order  of  society,  the  result  of  the 
action  of  the  spiritual  forces  set  in  motion  through  Christ. 

IX.  Finally,  the  Christian  view  affirms  that  history  has  a 
goal,  and  that  the  present  order  of  things  will  be  terminated 
by  the  appearance  of  the  Son  of  Man  for  judgment,  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  the  final  separation  of 
righteous  and  wicked;  final,  so  far  as  the  Scriptures 
afford  any  light,  or  entitle  us  to  hold  out  any  hope. 

Beyond  this  are  the  eternal  ages,  on  whose  depths  only 
stray    lights    fall,   as   in    that    remarkable   passage :    "  Then 

1  Eph.  i.  10. 


40         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Cometh  the  end,  when  He  shall  have  delivered  up  the  kingdom 
to  God,  even  the  Father  .  .  .  then  shall  the  Son  also  Him- 
self be  subject  unto  Him  that  put  all  things  under  Him, 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all,"  ^ — and  on  the  mysterious  blessed- 
ness or  sorrow  of  which,  as  the  ease  may  be,  it  is  needless 
to  speculate. 

I  have  for  clearness'  sake  exhibited  this  outline  of  the 
Christian  view  in  a  series  of  propositions,  but  I  need  hardly 
say  that  it  is  not  my  intention  to  attempt  to  exhaust  this 
outline,  or  anything  like  it,  in  this  brief  course  of  Lectures. 
In  the  actual  treatment  of  my  subject,  I  shall  be  guided 
very  much  by  the  way  in  which  the  main  positions  of  the 
Christian  view  are  related  to  current  theories  and  negations. 

1.  It  is  plain  that  the  Christian  view  of  the  world  is 
theistic,  and  as  such  is  opposed,  as  already  said,  to  all  the 
views  which  deny  a  living  personal  God,  and  also  to  Deism, 
which  denies  Eevelation. 

2.  The  Christian  views  of  nature  and  man  come  into 
conflict  with  many  current  theories.  They  involve,  for 
example,  the  ideas  of  creation,  and  of  the  spirituality, 
freedom,  and  immortal  destiny  of  man — all  of  which  the 
thoroughgoing  "  modern  "  view  of  the  world  opposes. 

3.  The  Christian  view  of  sin  is  irreconcilable  with  modern 
theories  which  represent  sin  as  a  necessity  of  development, 
and  nullify  its  true  conception  by  starting  man  off  at  a  stage 
but  little  removed  from  that  of  the  brutes.  At  least  I  take 
this  to  be  the  case,  and  shall  endeavour  to  give  reasons  for 
my  opinion. 

The  above  denials,  if  logically  carried  out,  involve  the 
'  rejection  of  the  Christian  view  as  a  whole.  We  reject  the 
Christian  view  in  toto,  if  we  deny  the  existence  of  God,  the 
spiritual  nature  and  immortality  of  man,  or  destroy  the 
idea  of  sin.  In  what  follows  we  are  rather  in  the  region  of 
Christian  heresy ;  at  least  the  total  rejection  of  the  Christian 

1  1  Cor.  XV.  24-28. 


SKETCH  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  41 

view  is  not  necessarily  implied,  though  in  its  mutilation  it 
is  found  that  neither  can  that  which  is  preserved  be  per- 
manently maintained. 

4.  The  assertion  of  the  Incarnation  may  he  met  by  a 
lower  estimate  of  Christ's  Person  than  the  full  Christian 
doctrine  implies;  or  by  the  complete  denial  of  the  super- 
natural dignity  of  His  Person. 

5.  The  Christian  view  may  be  met  by  the  denial  of  the 
need  or  the  reality  of  Atone-ment,  or  by  inadequate  or 
unscriptural  representations  of  that  great  doctrine. 

6.  There  may  be  unscriptural  denials,  as  well  as  un- 
warrantable dogmatisms,  in  the  matter  of  eschatology. 

My  course  then,  in  view  of  the  various  antitheses,  will 
shape  itself  as  follows  : — 

First,  keeping  in  mind  that  it  is  the  Incarnation  which  is 
the  central  point  in  the  Christian  view,  I  shall  look  in  the 
second  Lecture  at  the  alternatives  which  are  historically 
presented  to  us  if  this  doctrine  is  rejected. 

Next,  in  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  Lectures,  I  shall  con- 
sider in  order  the  three  postulates  of  the  Christian  view — 
God,  Nature  and  Man,  and  Sin. 

The  sixth  Lecture  will  be  devoted  to  the  Incarnation  itself, 
and  the  seventh  to  the  consideration  of  some  related  topics 
— the  higher  Christian  concept  of  God,  and  the  relation  of 
the  Incarnation  to  the  plan  of  the  world. 

The  eighth  Lecture  will  treat  of  the  Incarnation  and  Ee- 
demption  from  sin,  and  the  concluding  Lecture  will  treat  of 
the  Incarnation  and  human  destiny.^ 

^  The  original  plan  embraced  a  Lecture  between  Lectnre  VIII.  and  what  is  now 
IX. — on  "  Tlie  Incarnation  and  New  Life  of  Humanity  :  the  Kingdom  of  God." 
The  subject  is  touched  on  in  Lecture  IX.,  and  dealt  with  more  fully  in  an 
Appendix. 


APPENDIX   II. 

IDEA  OF  THE  "  WELTANSCHAUUNG." 

The  litera-      The  liistory  of  this  term  has  yet  to  be  written.     The  best 
tureofthe       gpecial  Contribution  to  the  discussion  of  the  idea  I  have  met 

subject.  ^ 

with  is  in  a  book  entitled,  Bic  Weltanschauung  des  Qhristen- 
thums,  by  August  Baur  (1881),  which  I  regret  I  did  not  come 
across  till  my  own  work  was  finished.  The  same  writer 
has  contributed  an  article  on  "  The  Notion  and  Ground-plan 
of  the  '  Weltanschauung '  generally,  and  of  the  Christian  in 
particular,"  to  the  Jahrhilcher  d.  jprot.  Theologie,  vol.  iii.  A 
valuable  examination  of  the  subject  is  contained  also  in  an 
able  work  published  in  1887,  Das  menschliclie  Erltennen,  Grund- 
linien  der  Erkenntnisstheorie,  und  Metaphysik,  by  Dr.  A.  Dorner. 
I  might  further  refer  to  Hartmann's  Religionsjpliilosopliie. 
Zweiter  Theil :  Die  Religion  des  Gcistes,  which,  on  this  particu- 
lar subject,  contains  a  good  deal  of  most  suggestive  matter 
(pp.  1-55).  As  may  be  gathered  from  the  remarks  in  the 
close  of  the  Lecture,  the  idea  has  a  large  place  in  the 
writings  of  the  Eitschlian  school.  It  is  discussed  with  special 
fulness  and  care  in  Hermann's  Die  Religion  im  Verhaltniss 
zum  Welterhennen  und  zur  SittlichJceit,  the  last  section  of 
which  bears  the  heading,  "  The  Task  of  the  Dogmatic  Proof 
of  the  Christian  '  Weltanschauung.' "  Lipsius  also  devotes 
considerable  attention  to  it  in  the  first  part  of  his  Dogmatik 
(sects.  16-115). 
A.  Baur—  A.  Baur,  in  the  book  above  named,  expresses  his  surprise 

prevalence  of   ^^^  yqioxq,  has  not  been  done  for  the  elucidation  of  a  term 

the  term. 

which  has  become  one  of  the  favourite  terms  of  the  day ; 


IDEA  OF  THE  "  WELTANSCHA  UUNGP  43 

and  alludes  to  the  absence  of  any  explanation  of  it  (a  fact 
which  had  struck  myself)  in  books  professedly  dealing  with  the 
terminology  of  philosophy  and  theology,  as,  e.g.,  Rud.  Eucken's 
Geschiclite  und  Kritik  cler  Grundbegriffe  der  Gegenwart  (1878), 
and  Geschiclite  der  philosopMschen  Terminologie  (1879)/  He 
remarks  —  "  From  all  sides  the  word  '  Weltanschauung  ' 
sounds  out  to  meet  us,  and  we  may,  without  impropriety,  say 
that  the  conflict  in  the  culture-movement  of  the  present  is  a 
conflict  of  '  Weltanschauungen.'  ^  But  how  entirely  is  there 
wanting  a  clear  and  intelligible,  universally  valid  notion  of 
the  word  itself !  .  .  .  But  the  power  which  this  word  has  in 
our  time,  which  is  so  strong  that  scientific  thought  also  has 
been  compelled  to  recognise  and  come  to  an  understanding 
with  it,  awakens  a  predisposition  to  a  favourable  judgment, 
and  leads  to  the  hope  that  the  word  will  become  a  per- 
manent possession  of  scientific  work."  ^  He  refers  not  only  to  Striving  of  the 
the  prevalence  of  the  term,  but  to  the  striving  in  our  own  ao^e  ^^^  ^•'^^!' . 

^  '  o  o    general  Views. 

after  the  formation  of  "  Weltanschauungen."  "  The  earnest- 
ness," he  says,  "  with  which,  even  on  the  side  of  Materialism, 
search  is  made  for  a  '  Weltanschauung '  which  shall  be  satis- 
fying, and  at  the  same  time  comprehensive  of  moral  relations, 
taken  in  connection  with  the  general  devotion  to  the  problem 
of  the  '  Weltanschauung,'  is  highly  significant  and  deserving 
of  attention  for  the  present."  *  A  valuable  service  of  the  The "  Welt- 
book  is  the  corroboration  it  affords  of  the  truth  that  a  com-  ^''''^^<^^^^/" 

a  unity  of 

plete  '  Weltanschauung '  cannot  be  based  on  the  natural  alone,  nattcral  and 
or  the  theoretic  alone,  but  implies  a  unity  of  the  natural  and  ^<'^^^- 
the  moral,  which  can  only  be  ultimately  accomplished  on  the 

^  Eucken  himself,  however,  uses  it,  as  when  he  says,  '  *  Bohme  strives  after 
an  expression  for  the  notion  of  consciousness  and  self-consciousness,  which  has 
a  central  place  within  his  '  Weltanschauung '  "  {Gesch.  der  phil.  Term,  p,  128) ; 
and  has  recently  published  an  admirable  historical  and  critical  work,  elsewhere 
referred  to,  bearing  the  kindred  title.  Die  Lehensanschauungen  der  grossen 
Denker  (1890).  This  work  contains  a  valuable  section  on  "  Die  christliche 
Welt  and  die  Lehensanschauungen  Jesu"  (pp.  154-205). 

2  Cf.  Karl  Peters,  Willemwelt,  etc.,  p.  107 — "  It  is  certain  that  the  conflict  of 
*  Weltanschauungen '  burns  to-day  more  vehemently  than  ever."  See  also  the 
brochure,  Im  Kampf  um  die  Weltanschauung,  referred  to  in  Note  A. 

3  Pp.  1-4.  4  p.  24. 


44         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

"basis  of  religion.^  He  says,  "  The  '  Weltanschauung '  is  not  a 
purely  theoretical  relation  to  nature,  although  the  theoretic 
moment  is  undeniably  contained  in  it, — not  a  purely  dis- 
interested apprehension  and  knowledge  of  the  world,  for  the 
sake  of  the  principle  of  knowledge  itself ;  it  relates  generally 
not  to  the  world  as  a  sum  of  particulars,  as  if  it  were  de- 
pendent on  the  comprehension  of  particulars  ;  it  includes  much 
more  a  personal,  practical  interest  of  the  onlooker  as  a  funda- 
mental element  in  itself ;  for  it  is  a  judgment  of  worth  upon 
the  world  as  a  whole,  as  a  single  given  magnitude  in  space 
and  time,  in  relation  to  the  life-aim,  to  the  life-determination 
of  the  viewing  subject.  This  judgment  upon  the  world  can 
indeed  be  excited  through  the  peculiarity  of  personal  experi- 
ence in  the  world,  nay,  must  be,  in  view  of  the  social 
relations  in  which  man  stands,  but  it  does  not  originate 
from  sensuous  perception,  or  from  physical  existence,  but 
is  a  direction  of  the  disposition  and  will,  and  on  that 
account  belongs  not  to  physics  but  to  ethics.  .  .  .  The 
*  Weltanschauung '  is  a  consideration  and  valuation  of  exist- 
ence in  space  and  time  in  the  light  of  our  proper  life-aiin, 
which  in  the  most  general  sense  of  the  word  we  are  able  to 
designate  a  moral  one."  ^ 
Relation  of  Probably  Baur  underrates  too  much  the  strength  of  the 

practical         Purely  theoretic  or  rational  impulse  in  disposing  man  to  seek 
motive.  the  unity  of  his  experiences  in  a  "  Weltanschauung,"  though 

it  is  granted  that  in  every  concrete  case,  even  where  there  is 
most  appearance  of  disinterestedness,  theoretical  and  practical 

^  The  headings  of  the  chapters  of  Baur's  book  will  suffice  to  show  its  import- 
ance for  our  subject.     They  are — 

1.  The  general  notion  of  the  "Weltanschauung." 

2.  Characterisation  and  criticism  of  the  objections  of  the  modern  spirit 
against  religion  and  the  religious  "  Weltanschauung." 

3.  Possibility  and  necessity  of  an  ideal,  supersensible  "  Weltanschauung." 

4.  The  supersensible,  ideal  ""Weltanschauung"  according  to  its  essence,  and 
in  its  transition  to  the  religious  *'  Weltanschauung"  generally. 

5.  The  "Weltanschauung"  of  Christianity. 

In  theology  A.  Baur  is  a  folloAver  of  Alex.  Schweitzer,  of  whom  a  good  notice 
may  be  seen  in  Pfleiderer' s  i^eve^opmen^  of  Theology ^  pp.  125-130. 
2  Pp.  21-25.  .      . 


IDEA  OF  THE  "  WELTANSCHA  UUNGP  45 

motives  are  mixed,  and  that  on  the  basis  of   the  theoretic 
alone  a  complete  or  satisfying  view  is  not  attainable.     Baur, 
however,  is  not  alone  in  this.     The  Eitschlian  school  carries  Views  which 
this  insistence  on  practical  motive  to  much  greater  lengths,  ^^^^i^"^  ^^^ 

^  &  b        'practical 

and  will  allow  no  origin  for  the  "  Weltanschauung  "  but  that  motive  alone— 
which  springs  from  religion  or  moralitv.     Eitschl,  e.g.,  traces  ^^^  Ritsckhan 

school. 

the  tendency  to  the  formation  of  general  views  of  the  world  „.    ,, 
solely   to   the   religious  impulse.     Philosophy  also,  he  says,  origin  of  the 
"  raises  the  claim  to  produce  in  its  own  way  a  view  of  the  "  ^^^^^«- 

schauung. 

world  as  a  whole ;  but  in  this  there  betrays  itself  much  more 
an  impulse  of  a  religious  kind,  which  philosophers  must  dis- 
tinguish from  their  method  of  knowledge."  ^  This  is  con- 
nected with  his  view  that  religion  itself  originates  in  the  need 
which  man  feels  of  help  from  a  supernatural  power  to  enable 
him  to  maintain  his  personality  against  the  limitations  and 
hindrances  of  natural  existence.^  Since,  however,  he  allows 
that  philosophy  has  as  part  of  its  task  "  the  aim  of  compre- 
hending the  world- whole  in  a  highest  law,"  and  that  "  the 
thought  of  God  which  pertains  to  religion  is  also  employed 
in  some  form  in  every  philosophy  which  is  not  materialistic,"  ^ 

^  Die  Christ.  Lehre  von  der  JRecJitfertigung  und  Versohnung,  iii.  p.  197  (3rd 
ed.).  It  is  not  observed  that  the  motive  of  the  "Weltanschauung"  is  some- 
times, as  with  Lucretius,  to  get  away  from  religion. 

2  "  In  all  religions, "  says  Ritschl,  "there  is  striven  after,  with  the  help  of 
the  exalted  spiritual  Power  which  man  worships,  the  solution  of  the  contra- 
diction in  which  man  finds  himself  as  part  of  the  natural  world,  and  as 
spiritual  personality,  which  makes  the  claim  to  rule  the  world.  For  in  the 
former  position  he  is  a  part  of  nature,  unable  to  withstand  it,  dependent  and 
limited  by  other  things ;  but  as  spirit  he  is  moved  by  the  impulse  to  make 
good  his  independence  against  it." — Eecht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  189.  More 
explicitly,  "The  religious  'Weltanschauung'  is  in  all  its  forms  grounded  on 
this,  that  man  in  some  degree  distinguishes  himself  in  worth  from  the 
natural  appearances  surrounding  him,  and  from  the  workings  of  nature  pressing 
upon  him.  Religion  is  the  interpretation  of  the  course  of  nature,  to  whatever 
extent  it  is  recognised,  in  this  sense,  that  the  exalted  spiritual  powers  (or 
spiritual  Power)  which  rule  in  and  over  nature  maintain  and  confirm  to  the 
personal  spirit  its  claims,  or  its  independence  against  the  limitations  arising 
from  nature  or  the  natural  workings  of  human  society." — Ibid.  p.  17.  At  an 
earlier  period,  Ritschl  had  even  spoken  of  God  as  a  "  help-conception"  (Hilfs- 
vorstellung)  for  the  attainment  of  his  practical  ends.  This  theory  of  religion  is 
referred  to  in  Note  I. 

3  P.  194.     Cf.  Note  N.— Ritschl  on  Religion  and  Philosophy. 


46         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WO  RID. 

what  he  really  contends  for  would  seem  to  amount  to  no 
more  than  this,  that  theoretic  knowledge  alone  cannot  attain 
to  that  highest  view  of  God  which  is  given  in  the  Christian 
religion,  and  which  is  necessary  for  the  completion  of  a 
satisfactory  view  of  the  universe  as  a  whole.^  The  truth  is, 
Eitschl's  views  vary  very  widely  on  these  topics  in  the 
different  editions  of  his  chief  work,  and  it  is  no  easy  task  to 
reduce  his  statements  to  unity. 
Hermann  In  quite  a  similar  spirit  to  Eitschl,  his  disciples  Hermann 

on  the  same.  ^^^  Kaftan  conceive  of  the  "Weltanschauung"  as  due 
only  to  the  operation  of  the  practical  or  religious  motive. 
Hermann  is  the  nearer  to  Eitschl,  only  that  in  his  treatment 
the  moral  aim  is  made  more  prominent  than  the  religious, 
and  behind  both  stands  the  "  feeling  of  self "  (Selbstgefuhl), 
to  which  morality  and  religion  are  alike  related  as  means. 
"  It  is  not  the  purely  theoretic  in  natural  knowledge  which 
produces  that  thought,  but  the  practical  impulse  residing  in 
it."  2  "  From  the  person  the  representation  of  a  world- whole 
is  inseparable,  since  without  the  conviction  of  the  reality  of 
the  same  his  own  existence,  with  its  inalienable  claim,  must 
appear  meaningless."  ^  The  "  Weltanschauung  "  is  born  out 
of  "  the  self -feeling  of  man,  his  feeling  of  his  worth,  and  the 
desire  proceeding  from  this  to  see  his  worth  established 
through  the  course  of  the  world,  in  which  he  finds  himself 
unceasingly  involved."  *  "  If  I  seek  to  represent  a  w^orld- 
whole,  because,  as  a  person  conscious  of  my  highest  good,  I 
will  not  to  lose  myself  in  the  multitude  of  things,  I  thus 
maintain  the  impulse  to  religious  faith.  Whether  the  world- 
whole  which  I  sketch  for  this  end  is  thought  of  as  theistic, 

^  Ritsclil's  own  words,  with  which  we  heartily  agree,  are :  **  If  theoretical 
thought  is  ever  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  world  as  a  whole,  it  will  have  to 
fall  back  on  the  Christian  view  of  God,  of  the  world,  and  of  human  destiny  " 
(2nd  ed.  p.  210).  The  variations  in  his  positions  are  pointed  out  and  adversely 
criticised  by  Pfleiderer  in  his  papers  on  Die  RitscliVsche  Theologie  (1891) ;  by 
vStahlin  in  his  Kant,  Lotze,  unci  Ritschl  (translated,  1889)  ;  by  Bertrand  in 
his  Une  Nouvelle  Conception  de  la  Redemption  (1891),  and  by  most  of  Eitschl's 
other  critics. 

2  Die  Religion,  etc.,  p.  37.  ^  Ihid,  p.  40.  "*  P.  82. 


IDEA  01^  THE  ''WELTANSCHAUUNG:'  47 

pantheistic,  or  materialistic,  does  not  affect  its  general  reli- 
gious character  (!).  Eeligion  remains  the  conviction  of  such  a 
world-whole  in  all  its  forms."  ^  On  the  unsatisfactoriness  of 
Hermann's  view  of  the  connection  of  religion  with  morality, 
and  of  both  with  the  idea  of  the  world-whole,  see  Pfleiderer 
in  his  BdigionspMlosoijJiie  (Eng.  trans,  vol.  ii.  pp.  192-202), 
and  Die  RitscliVsclie  Theologie,  pp.  84-1 00.^ 

Kaftan  is  equally  explicit.  "  The  question  is  reasonable,"  Kafian  on  the 
he  says,  "  how  we  are  led  to  strive  after  a  highest  knowledge.  "^^''^^* 
.  .  .  The  highest  knowledge,  I  would  recall,  is  identical  with 
that  which  otherwise  we  well  term  the  '  Weltanschauung  '  of 
a  man,  and  in  it  lies,  at  least  for  him  who  recognises  a 
highest  knowledge,  the  ultimate  ground  of  decision  for  his  con- 
duct. Manifestly,  therefore,  the  highest  knowledge  has  always 
equally  a  practical  significance.  But  we  cannot  stop  there. 
It  must  not  less  be  said  that  it  is  a  practical  interest  which 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  this  whole  striving.  We  ask  after 
the  first  cause  and  the  last  end  of  the  world,  because  we 
ourselves  belong  to  the  world,  and  our  fate  is  bound  up  with 
the  world's.  Whence  come  I  ?  and  whither  go  I  ?  On  these 
questions  man  seeks  clearness,  because,  according  to  the 
answer  which  these  questions  find,  he  must  direct  his  life. 
And  this  answer  it  is  for  the  sake  of  which  he  concerns  him- 
self about  a  higher  knowledge."^  On  the  place  of  the 
religious  motive  in  the  formation  of  the  "  Weltanschauung " 
Kaftan  is  not  so  clear ;  but  he  is  explicit  on  the  fact  that 
religious  faith  demands  the  idea  of  the  world  as  a  whole. 
"  The  thought,"  he  says  in  his  earlier  work,  "  of  a  world- 
whole  belongs,  as  is  well  known,  not  to  the  customary 
experience  which  we  have  of  the  world  ;  neither  does  it  ever 

1  P.  86. 

2  With  the  Ritschlian  theologians  religion  and  morality  sustain  only  an 
external  relation  to  each  other.  The  deepest  impulse  is  not  religion,  but  self- 
maintenance  (Hermann),  or  self-satisfaction  (Kaftan).  Religion  is  but  a  means 
to  this  end. 

^  Die  Wahrheit  d.  christ.  Religion,  p.  ^389.  See  the  whole  discussion, 
pp.  383-435. 


48         THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WORLD. 

originate  in  the  reflective  elaboration  of  such  experience, 
however  far  that  may  be  carried.  It  has,  therefore,  been 
supposed  that  the  thought  of  a  world-whole  is  religious  in  its 
origin  and  character.  ...  Be  this  as  it  may,  at  all  events 
religious  faith  relates  to  the  world  in  its  totality,  since  it  is 
this  which  in  our  consciousness  stands  over  against  God,  and 
to  be  distinguished  from  this  belongs  to  the  inalienable 
nature  of  God."  ^ 

The  peculiarity  of  the  Christian  "  Weltanschauung " 
Kaftan  sums  up  in  the  two  positions — "  that  the  world  is 
perfectly  dependent  on  God,  and  that  He  orders  everything  in 
it  in  conformity  with  the  end  of  His  holy  love."  ^ 

^  Da^  Westn  d,  ckrisL  Religion,  p.  395.  ^  Ihid.  p.  393. 


LECTURE  II. 


W(\t  C})risttan  mt'm  antr  its  aiternattbes. 


"  There  has  seldom  been  an  age  more  irreligious  than  ours,  yet  it  will 
be  difficult  to  find  one  in  which  religious  questions  have  been  more  pro- 
foundly discussed."— Hartmann. 

"In  the  history  of  systems  an  inexorable  logic  rids  them  of  their 
halfness  and  hesitancies,  and  drives  them  straight  to  their  inevitable 
goal. "— Martineau. 

"  Conjecture  of  the  worker  by  the  work  : 
Is  there  strength  there  ? — enough  :  intelligence  ? 
Ample :  but  goodness  in  a  like  degree  ? 
Not  to  the  human  eye  in  the  present  state, 
An  isoscele  deficient  in  the  base. 
What  lacks,  then,  of  perfection  fit  for  God 
But  just  the  instance  which  this  tale  supplies 
Of  love  without  a  limit  ?    So  is  strength, 
So  is  intelligence  ;  let  love  be  so. 
Unlimited  in  its  self-sacrifice, 
Then  is  the  tale  true  and  God  shows  complete." 

E.  Browning. 


LECTUKE    11. 

THE  CHEISTIAN  VIEW  AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES. 

It  is  the  fundamental  assumption  of  these  Lectures  that  the  Magnitude  of 
central  point  in  the  Christian  view  of  God  and  the  world  is  ^^f  asmmp- 
the  acknowledgment  of  Jesus  Christ  as  a  truly  Divine  Person  christian. 
— the  Son  of  God  made  flesh.     How  is  this  assumption  to  be  ^'^'^^• 
vindicated  ?     I  do  not  conceal  from  myself  that  the  issues 
involved  in   such   an   assertion   are  very  stupendous.      The 
belief  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  is  not  one  to  be  lightly 
taken  up,  but,  when  it  is  taken  up,  it  practically  determines, 
as  has  already  been  said,  a  man's  views  on  everything  else  in 
Christianity.     No  one  will  dispute  that,  if  Jesus   Christ  is 
what  the  creeds  declare  Him  to  be — an   Incarnation  of  the 
Divine  —  His    Person    is    necessarily    central   in    His    own 
religion,  nay,  in  the  universe.     Christianity,  on  this  assump- 
tion,  is   correctly   described   as   the   Eeligion   of   the   Incar- 
nation. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  is  precisely  the  view  of  the  Person  Rejection  of 
of  Christ  which,  we  are  told,  the  modern  view  of  the  world  ^^'^  'doctrine  of 
compels   us   to   reject.      No   doctrine   stumbles    the   modern  ^/^^^  ^^  ^,5^ 
mind  so  completely  as  this.     It  is  flatly  pronounced  incredible  ''modem''' 
and  absurd.     That  Jesus  was  the  holiest  of  men — the  Divinest 
of  the  race,  the  most  perfect  exhibition  of  the   god-like  in 
humanity — may  well  be  conceded  ;  but  of  literal  Incarnation 
it   is    not    permitted    to   the  modern   intelligence   to   speak. 
Science  has  to  investigate  the  origin  of  tlie  dogma ;  to  show 
how  it  arose  from  the  powerful  impression  made  by  Jesus  on 
His  followers ;  how  it  was  shaped  by  Hebrew  and  Hellenic 


52  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

modes  of  thought ;  but  it  cannot  for  a  moment  entertain  the 
possibility  that  the  idea  which  it  represents  is  true.  As 
strenuously  is  our  right  resisted  to  speak  of  this  doctrine  as 
an  essential  and  integral  part  of  Christianity.  Short  of  this 
conception,  it  is  said,  there  are  many  grades  of  belief  in 
Christ,  and  we  are  not  entitled  to  un christianise  any  of  them. 
To  identify  the  essence  of  Christianity  with  the  Incarnation 
is,  it  is  held,  to  make  a  particular  dogmatic  interpretation  of 
Christianity  equivalent  to  Christianity  itself.  It  is  not, 
indeed,  among  the  extremer  sceptics  that  we  find  any 
difficulty  in  getting  the  acknowledgment  that  the  Incarnation 
is  central  in  Christianity.  "  It  is,"  says  Strauss,  "  certainly 
the  central  dogma  in  Christianity.  Here  the  Founder  is  at 
the  same  time  the  most  prominent  object  of  worship ;  the 
system  based  on  Him  loses  its  support  as  soon  as  He  is 
shown  to  be  lacking  in  the  qualities  appropriate  to  an  object 
of  religious  worship."  ^  "  In  Him  alone,"  says  Feuerbach,  "  is 
concentrated  the  Christian  religion."  -  Quite  logically,  from 
his  point  of  view,  Strauss  draws  the  conclusion,  that  since  the 
Incarnation  is  untenable,  Christianity  falls  to  the  ground  with 
it.  But  others  will  not  go  thus  far.  They  distinguish 
between  Christianity  and  its  accidents,  and  put  this  doctrine 
in  the  category  of  the  accidents.  Nay,  it  is  ostensibly  in 
the  interests  of  what  is  supposed  to  be  a  purer  and  more 
primitive  form  of  Christianity,  that  in  many  quarters  the 
demand  for  the  surrender  of  this  doctrine  is  made.  The  cry 
is,  "  Back  from  Christianity  to  Christ "  —  back  from  the 
Christianity  of  the  creeds,  from  the  Christianity  even  of 
Paul  and  John — to  the  Christ  of  the  simple  Galilean  gospel, 
who  never  dreamt  of  making  Himself  God.  As  Lessing,  in 
a  famous  passage,  distinguishes  between  "  the  religion  of 
Christ "  and  "  the  Christian  religion,"  meaning  by  the  former 
the  religion  which  Christ  Himself  professed  and  practised, 
and  by  the  latter  the  superstructure  of  dogma  subsequently 

^  De,r  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe,  pp.  43,  44. 

^  Das  Wesen  des  Chriatenthums,  p.  147  (Eiig.  trans.). 


AND  ITS  ALTERNA  JIVES.  53 

reared  on  this ;  ^  so  an  analogous  distinction  is  drawn  between 

the  Pauline  and  Johannine  Christ,  with  His  halo  of  super-  ^^ 

natural  attributes,  and  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus,  so  intensely 

human,  of  the  Synoptic  gospels. 

Nevertheless,   the    ablest    theology    of    the    century    will  Central  place 
sustain  me  in  the  cjeneral  assertion,  that  the  central  principle  ^^  ^^^^-^^'-^ 

^  _  ^  ^       Person  tn  His 

of  Christianity  is  the  Person  of  its  Pounder.  Whatever  religion. 
may  be  thought  of  the  great  speculative  movement  in  the 
beginning  of  the  century,  connected  with  the  names  of  Pichte 
and  Schelling  and  Hegel,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  at  least  it 
rendered  an  essential  service  to  theology  in  overcoming  the 
shallow  rationalism  of  the  preceding  period,  and  in  restoring 
to  its  place  of  honour  in  the  Christian  system  the  doctrine  of 
Christ's  Person,  which  it  had  become  customary  to  put  in  the 
background.  Still  more  influential  in  this  direction  was  the 
powerful  impulse  given  to  theology  by  Schleiermacher.  Since 
that  time  all  the  best  theology  in  Germany  may  be  said  to 
be  Christoloo-ical.  That  Christ  sustains  a  different  relation 
to  His  religion  from  that  of  ordinary  founders  of  religion  to 
the  faiths  they  have  founded;  that  in  Him  there  was  a 
peculiar  union  of  the  Divine  and  human  ;  that  His  appearance 
and  work  were  of  decisive  importance  for  the  Church  and  for 
humanity  —  these  are  thoughts  which  may  be  said  to  be 
common  to  all  the  greater  systems,  irrespective  of  schools. 
They  are  found  among  theologians  as  widely  separated  in 
dogmatic  standpoint  and  tendency  as  Eothe  and  Dorner, 
Biedermann  and  Lipsius^  Beyschlag  and  Eitschl,  Luthardt 
and  Frank.  It  is  only  outside  the  circles  of  really  influential 
theology  that  we  find  a  reversion  to  the  loose  deistic  concep- 
tion of  Christ  as  simply  a  Prophet  or  moral  Teacher,  like 
Moses  or  Confucius  or  Buddha.^  It  is  indeed  a  powerful 
proof  of  the  view  that  the  Person  of  Christ  is  of  unique 
importance  in  His  religion  that,  whenever  a  new  breath  of 
life  passes  over  theology,  and  an  attempt  is  made  to  gain  a 

^  Cf.  Pfleiderer,  JReligionsphilosopJiie,  i.  p.  141  (Eng.  trans.). 
"  See  Note  A. — The  Central  Place  of  Christ  in  His  Religion. 


54  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

profounder  apprehension  of  Christianity,  there  is  a  recurrence 
to  this  idea,  and  the  necessity  is  felt  of  doing  justice  to  it  ; 
thus  testifying  to  the  truth  of  Dorner's  remark,  "  A  Christian 
system  which  is  unable  to  make  Christology  an  integral  part 
of  itself  has  pronounced  its  own  judgment ;  it  has  really 
given  up  the  claim  to  the  title  of  Christian."  ^ 
Differing  At  the  same  time,  this  acknowledgment  of  the  central  and 

estimates  of     unique  place  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  in  His  religion 

the  Person  of  ,       ,  .  «     i  •  • 

Christ—  does  not  settle  the  question  of  the  precise  estimate  we  are  to 
methods  of  take  of  His  Terson.  Is  He  merely  human,  or  is  He  Divine 
as  well  ?  Or  if  Divine,  in  what  sense  do  we  attach  this 
predicate  to  Him  ?  Is  it,  as  with  the  Hegelians,  the  mere 
expression  of  a  metaphysical  idea — of  that  identity  of  the 
Divine  and  the  human  which  is  as  true  of  all  men  as  it  is  of 
Christ,  only  that  it  came  first  to  clear  consciousness  in  Him  ? 
Or  is  it,  as  with  Pdtschl,  the  mere  expression  of  a  value- 
judgment  of  the  believer  —  a  predicate  denoting  the  worth 
which  Christ  has  for  the  believing  soul  as  the  supreme 
Eevealer  of  God's  character  and  purpose  ?  Or  is  it,  as  with 
others,  an  ethical  Divinity  that  is  ascribed  to  Christ — such 
participation  in  the  Divine  nature  and  life  of  Sonship  as  may 
be  experienced  also  by  the  believer  ?  ^  Or  shall  we  hold,  in 
agreement  with  the  general  faith  of  the  Church,  that  Christ 
is  more  than  all  this — that  in  Him  the  Divine  pre-existing 
Word  truly  and  personally  became  incarnate,  and  made  our 
nature  His  own — that  therefore  He  is  the  Son  of  God,  not 
simply  as  we  are,  but  in  a  high  and  transcendental  sense, 
in  which  wc  cannot  compare  ourselves  with  Him  ?  This 
question,  in  the  present  state  of  controversy,  is  not  so  easily 
settled  as  might  at  first  sight  appear.  It  is  vain,  of  course, 
to  appeal  to  the  great  ecclesiastical  creeds,  for  it  is  they 
which  are  in  dispute.  It  is  vain  also,  at  this  stage,  to 
attempt  to  settle  the  question  by  the  simple  method  of 
citation  of  proof  texts.     The  facts  of  Christ's  self-revelation, 

1  Doct.  of  Person  of  Christ,  v.  p.  49  (Eng.  trans.). 

2  Thus,  e.g.,  AVendt  in  his  Inhalt  der  Lehrx  Jesu. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  55 

and  His  witness  to  His  own  Person,  must  indeed,  in  the  last 
resort,  be  the  ground  on  which  our  faith  in  Him  rests,  and  it  ~   _ 

will  be  necessary  at  a  later  stage  to  examine  this  self-wdtness 
of  Christ,  as  well  as  the  apostolic  doctrine,  with  considerable 
care.^  But  at  the  outset  this  method  is  attended  by  obvious 
disadvantages.  It  is  easy  to  say — the  original  documents  of 
Christianity  are  before  us  ;  let  us  examine  them.  But,  for 
one  thing,  some  of  these  documents — the  Fourth  Gospel,  e.g.^ 
and  some  of  the  Pauline  epistles — are  themselves  in  dispute 
among  our  opponents ;  and,  even  if  genuine,  their  authority 
is  not  accepted  as  decisive.  In  the  next  jDlace,  there  is  the 
question,  w^hether  there  are  not  traces  of  development  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  even  within  the  JSI'ew 
Testament — whether  all  the  sacred  writers  teach  the  same 
view.  There  are  many,  as  I  have  already  said,  who  will 
admit  that  Christ's  Divinity  is  taught  by  Paul  and  John, 
who  would  deny  that  it  is  taught  by  Christ  Himself.  These 
are  difficulties  which  cannot  be  satisfactorily  met  by  mere 
assertion,  and  the  question  recurs,  whether — as  a  provisional 
expedient  at  least — any  other  course  is  open  to  us  ? 

There  is  another  method  which  I  propose  to  apply  in  this  The  method  of 
Lecture,  one  which  appears  to  me  to  have  the  advantaoje  of  ^^"^  Lecture— 

^^  ^  ^         appeal  to 

dealing  with  all  these  issues  at  once,  and  at  the  same  time  history.    The 
deals  with  issues  of  a  wider  character.     It  is  the  method  of  %^^^^  ^^o^^- 

7ne7it  in 

appeal  to  history.  The  individual  judgment  may  err  in  the  history. 
opinions  it  forms,  and  in  the  conclusions  it  deduces  from 
tliem.  It  is  not  given  to  any  man  to  see  all  the  consequences 
that  follow  from  his  own  thinking.  He  may  quite  conceiv- 
ably hold  in  the  scheme  of  his  beliefs  propositions  that  are 
inconsistent  with  each  other,  and,  if  logically  carried  out, 
would  destroy  each  other,  and  not  be  aware  of  the  fact.  In 
history  things  get  beaten  out  to  their  true  issues.  The 
strands  of  thought  that  are  incompatible  with  each  other  get 
separated ;  conflicting  tendencies,  at  first  unperceived,  are 
brought  to  light ;  opposite  one-sidednesses  correct  each  other ; 

1  Cf.  Lecture  VI. 


56  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

and  the  true  consequences  of  theories  reveal  themselves  with 
inexorable  necessity.  As  Socrates,  in  Plato's  BepuUic^  inves- 
tigating the  nature  of  Justice,  proposes  to  study  it  first  as 
"  writ  large "  in  the  collective  magnitude  of  the  State,  that 
thereafter  he  may  return  with  better  knowledge  to  the  study 
of  it  in  the  individual,  so  the  movements  of  thought  are  best 
studied  on  the  broad  scale  in  which  they  present  themselves 
over  large  periods  of  time.  It  is  to  this  test  I  propose  to 
bring  the  great  question  of  Christianity — the  same  that  was 
proposed  by  Jesus  to  the  Pharisees  eighteen  hundred  years 
ago — "  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  Whose  Son  is  He  ?  "  "^  I 
shall  ask  what  aid  history  affords  us  in  determining  the  true 
estimate  to  be  put  upon  the  Person  of  Christ,  and  the  place 
held  in  the  Christian  system  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Incar- 
nation. 
Advantage  of  It  is  One  advantage  of  this  method  that,  as  I  have  said,  it 
thismeihod.  ^^^vug^  all  the  issucs  into  court  at  once.  The  verdict  of 
history  is  at  once  a  judgment  on  the  answers  which  have 
been  given  to  the  theological  question  ;  on  their  agreement 
with  the  sum  -  total  of  the  facts  of  Christianity ;  on  the 
methods  of  exegesis  and  New  Testament  criticism  by  which 
they  have  been  supported ;  on  their  power  to  maintain  them- 
selves against  rival  views ;  on  how  far  the  existence  of 
Christianity  is  dependent  on  them,  or  bound  up  with  them. 

/.  History  a  I.  History,  then,  as  it  seems  to  me,  presents  us  with  a  series 
^alternatives—  ^^  alternatives  of  a  deeply  interesting  character,  by  studying 
the  downward  which  we   may  find  our  bearings  on   this  question,  "  What 

movement.         ^^-^^^  ^^  ^^  ^j^^.^^  ^  „    ^^  ^^  ^^^  .^  ^^  ^^^^^  ^^^^ 

I.  First  alter-'  1.  The  first  essential  service  which  history  has  rendered 
native— a        ^g   ^^^   \iQ,QVL   in    the,   elimination   of  intermediate  mews  —  in 

Divine  Christ,  ^  _  -^ 

or  humani-      making  it  clear  as  a  first  alternative  that  the  real  issue  on 

tarianism.       ^j^^g   q^^stion  IS   between  a   truly   Divine    Christ   and  pure 

\  humanitarianism.       Intermediate   views   on    Christ's    Person 

have  from  time  to  time  arisen,  and  still  go  on  arising,  in  the 

1  Book  ii.  2  ;^iatt.  xxii.  42. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  57 

Church ;  but,  like  the  intermediate  species  of  plants  and 
animals  Mr.  Darwin  tells  us  of,  which  are  invariably  driven 
to  the  wall  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  they  have  never 
been  able  to  survive.  There  is,  e.g.,  the  Arian  view,  which  Arianism. 
has  appeared  again  and  again  in  the  history  of  the  Church  in 
times  of  spiritual  decadence.  To  find  a  place  for  the  high 
attributes  ascribed  to  Christ  in  Scripture,  a  lofty  supernatural 
dignity  is  in  this  view  assigned  to  Him.  He  was  a  sort  of 
supreme  angel,  God's  First  -  born,  His  instrument  in  the 
creation  of  the  w^orld,  etc.  But  He  was  not  eternal ;  He  was 
not  of  Divine  essence.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  this  view  is  now 
practically  extinct.  It  would  be  a  shallow  reading  of  history 
to  attribute  the  defeat  of  Arianism  in  the  early  Church  to  the 
anathemas  of  councils,  the  influence  of  court  favour,  or  any 
other  accidental  circumstances.  It  perished  through  its  own 
inherent  weakness.^  If  the  Arians  admit  all  they  profess  to 
do  about  Christ — that  He  was  pre-existent,  God's  agent  in 
the  creation  of  the  world,  etc. — there  need  be  little  difficulty 
in  admitting  the  rest.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they  stop  short 
of  the  higher  view  to  which  the  Scriptures  seem  to  point, 
they  entangle  themselves  in  difficulties  and  contradictions, 
exegetical  and  other,  which  make  it  impossible  for  them  to 
remain  where  they  are.  In  reality,  these  high  -  sounding 
attributes  which  they  ascribe  to  Christ  are  an  excrescence  on 
the  system  ;  for  on  this  theory  no  work  remains  for  Christ  to 
do  which  could  not  have  been  accomplished  equally  well  by 
a  highly  endowed  man.  Historically,  therefore,  Arianism  has 
always  tended  to  work  round  to  the  Socinian  or  strictly 
Unitarian  view  of  Christ,  where  it  has  not  gone  upwards, 
through  semi- Arianism,  to  the  recognition  of  His  full  Divinity. 

But    this    Socinian   or   Unitarian   view  of   the   Person  of  Socimanism 

and  the  older 
1  See  Note  B.— The  Defeat  of  Arianism.  Dorner  says  :  "Not  merely  did  it  U^itarianisnu 
tend  back  to  Ebionitism  ;  not  merely  was  it  unable,  with  its  Docetism  and  its 
doctrine  of  a  created  higher  spirit,  to  allow  even  the  possibility  of  an  Incarna- 
tion ;  but,  by  putting  a  fantastical  under-God  between  God  and  man,  it  separated 
the  two  quite  as  much  as  it  appeared  to  unite  them." — Person  of  Christ,  ii.  p.  261 
(Eng.  trans.). 


58  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

Christ — I  refer  to  the  older  Unitarianism  of  the  Priestley  and 
Channing  type — is  another  of  those  intermediate  views  which 
history  also  may  now  be  said  to  have  eliminated.  Christ,  on 
this  view,  is  the  greatest  of  inspired  teachers,  a  true 
Prophet.  He  had  a  Divine  mission ;  He  wrought  miracles 
in  confirmation  of  His  doctrine  ;  He  rose  from  the  dead  on 
the  third  day ;  He  is  expected  to  return  to  judge  the  world. 
Here  also  there  is  a  great  deal  of  the  halo  of  the  supernatural 
about  Christ.  He  is  supernatural  in  history,  if  not  in  nature, 
and  men  saw  again  that  they  must  either  believe  more  or 
believe  less.  The  rationalistic  leaven,  which  was  already 
working  in  the  rejection  of  the  higher  aspects  of  Christ's 
Person  and  work,  made  itself  increasingly  felt.  As  the 
miraculous  adjuncts  were  retained  only  in  deference  to  the 
representations  of  Scripture,  they  were  readily  abandoned 
when  criticism  professed  to  show  how  they  might  be  stripped 
off  without  detriment  to  Christ's  moral  image.  Be  the  cause 
what  it  may,  it  is  undeniable  that  Unitarianism  of  this  kind 
has  not  been  able  to  maintain  itself.  It  has  constantly 
tended  to  purge  itself  of  the  remaining  supernatural  features 
in  the  portrait  of  Christ,  and  to  descend  to  the  level  of 
simple  humanitarianism,  i.e.,  to  the  belief  in  Christ  as  simply 
a  great  man,  a  religious  genius  of  the  first  rank,  one  in  whom 
the  light  which  shines  in  all  men  shone  in  an  eminent  degree 
— but  still  a  mere  man,  without  anything  supernatural  in  His 
origin,  nature,  or  history.^ 
Christoiogy  oj  A  further  example  of  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  an 
\lhiekr  intermediate  position  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ 

macher.  may  be   taken  from  the   long  series  of  intermediate  views 

which  have  sprung  up  on  the  soil  of  Germany  as  the  result 
of  the  great  intellectual  and  theological  movement  inaugurated 
by  Hegel  and  Schleierm acker  in  the  beginning  of  the  century. 
Passing  by  the  speculative  Christologies^in  which,  when  the 
veil  was  stripped  off,  it  was  found  that  the  idea  was  every- 
thing, the  historical  Christ  nothing — I  may  refer  here  to  the 

^  See  Kote  C. — Modern  Uiiitarianism. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  59 

Christology  of  Schleiermacher  and  his  school.  Schleier- 
niacher  recognises  to  the  full  "  a  peculiar  being  of  God  in 
Christ."^  He  affirms  Christ's  perfect  sinlessness,  and  the 
unique  significance  of  His  Personality  for  the  Church  and  for 
the  race.  He  is  the  Head,  Archetype,  Eepresentative,  and 
Eedeemer  of  mankind.  Only  through  Him  is  Eedemption 
from  sin  and  fellowship  of  life  with  God  possible.  But 
w^hen  we  come  to  inquire  wherein  consists  this  "  peculiar 
being  of  God  "  in  Christ,  it  proves,  after  all,  to  be  only  an 
exceptionally  constant  and  energetic  form  of  that  God-con- 
sciousness which  exists  germinally  in  all  men,  and  indeed  lies 
at  the  root  of  religious  experience  generally.  The  difference 
betw^een  Christ  and  other  men  is  thus  in  degree,  not  in  kind. 
In  Him  this  Divine  element  had  the  ascendency,  in  us  it  has 
not.  He  is  a  miracle,  in  so  far  as  the  Divine  dwelt  in  Him 
in  this  unique  and  exceptional  fulness  and  power,  constituting 
Him  the  Eedeemer  and  second  Adam  of  the  race ;  but  there 
is  no  entrance  of  God  into  humanity  such  as  w^e  associate 
with  the  idea  of  Incarnation.  When,  further,  we  investigate 
the  nature  of  Christ's  saving  activity,  we  find  that  the 
exalted,  high-priestly  functions  which  Schleiermacher  ascribes 
to  Christ  shrink,  on  inspection,  into  very  meagre  dimensions. 
Christ's  continued  saving  activity  in  His  Church  is  pre- 
supposed, but  it  is  not  the  activity  of  One  who  still  lives  and 
reigns  on  high,  but  rather  the  perpetuation  of  a  posthumous 
influence,  through  the  preservation  of  His  image  in  the 
Gospels,  and  the  fellowship  of  the  Christian  society.^  Ultim- 
ately, therefore,  Christ's  saving  activity  is  reduced  to  example 
and  teaching ;  at  most,  to  the  spiritual  influence  of  a  great 
and  unique  historic  Personality.^  When  we  have  got  this 
length,  we  are  clearly  back  on  the  road  to  simple  humani- 
tarianism.  Accordingly,  none  of  Schleiermacher's  followers 
have  been  able  to  stop  exactly  where  he  did.  They  have  felt 
the  inexorable  compulsion  of  the  less  or  more ;   and  while 

1  Der  Christ.  Glauhe,  sect.  94.  -  Thus  also  Pdtsclil. 

^  On  Sclileierraacher's  Christology  cf.  Donier,  Person  of  Christ,  v,  pp.  174-213. 


6o 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


New  wave  of 
mediating 
theology  in 
school  of 
Ritschl. 


The  verdict 
of  history 
against  inter- 
mediate views 


2.  Second 
alternative — 
a  Divine 
Christy  or 
Agnosticism. 


some  have  gone  back  to  rationalism,  the  great  majority,  as 
Kothe  acknowledges/  have  pressed  on  to  more  positive  views, 
and  have  come  into  substantial  harmony  with  confessional 
orthodoxy.  A  new  wave  of  mediating  theology  has  recently 
arisen  in  the  school  of  Eitschl ;  but  the  fundamental  principle 
of  this  school — the  denial  of  the  right  of  the  theoretic  reason 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  religion  or  theology — is  not  one 
that  can  permanently  be  approved  of,  and  would,  if  followed 
out,  end  in  boundless  subjectivity.  In  this  school  also, 
accordingly,  the  necessity  of  less  or  more  is  asserting  itself. 
Already  the  members  of  the  school  have  begun  to  move  off 
on  different  and  irreconcilable  lines  —  some  in  a  more 
negative,  the  greater  number  in  a  more  positive  direction. 
The  attempt  of  Eitschl  to  bar  off  all  inquiry  into  the  nature 
of  Christ's  Person  by  resolving  His  "  Godhead  "  into  a  mere 
value-judgment  of  the  believer  is  felt  not  to  be  satisfactory ; 
and  the  admission  is  increasingly  made  that  consistency  of 
Christian  thinking  demands  the  acknowledgment  of  a  tran- 
scendental basis.^ 

The  general  verdict  of  history,  therefore,  is  clearly  against 
the  permanence  of  these  attempts  at  a  middle  view  of  Christ's 
Person,  and  warns  us  whither  they  tend.  The  liberal  school 
in  Germany,  Holland,  and  France,  are  clearly  right  in  saying 
that  the  only  alternative  to  Christ's  true  Divinity  is  pure 
humanitarianism ;  and  that,  if  the  former  doctrine  is 
rejected,  the  supernatural  view  of  His  Person  must  be 
altogether  given  up.  This  is  a  clear  issue,  and  I  think  it  is 
well  to  have  matters  brought  to  it  without  shrinking  or 
disguise.  I  desire  now  to  show  that  this  first  alternative 
soon  lands  us  in  a  second. 

2.  The  first  alternative  is  between  a  Divine  Christ  and  a 
purely  human  one — the  second  is  between  a  Divine  Christ 
and  pure  Agnosticism.     Many  of  those  who  take  the  humani- 

1  He  says  :  "Since  Schleiermacher's  death,  the  school  proceeding  from  him 
has  generally  gone  back  into  the  way  of  the  Church  doctrine." — Dogmatik, 

i.  p.  162. 

2  See  Note  D. — Concessions  of  Ritschlians  on  the  Person  of  Christ. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  6i 

tarian  view  of  Christ's  Person  are  very  far  from  wishing  to 

deny   that    a    great   deal   of  what   Christ  taught   was   true.       ~  ~ 

They  do  not  wish  to  deny  the  existence  of  God,  or  the  fact  of 

a  future  life,  or  the  essentials  of  Christian  morality.     In  not 

a  few  cases  they   strongly  uphold   these  truths  —  maintain 

them  to  be  the  true  natural  religion  in  opposition  to  revealed. 

They  account  it  Christ's  greatest  glory  that  He  saw  so  clearly, 

and  announced  so  unambiguously,  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the 

dignity  of  the   soul,  the  certainty  of   immortality,  and  the 

dependence  of  happiness  here  and  hereafter  on  virtue.     It  is 

a  plausible  view  to  take,  for  it  seems  to  secure  to  those  who 

hold   it   all  that  they  take   to  be  essential  in   Christianity, 

while  at  the  same  time  it  leaves  them  unbounded  liberty  to 

accept  or  reject  what  they  like  in  modern  "  advanced  "  views 

— to  get  rid  of  miracles,  go  in  with  progressive  theories  of 

science,  accept  the  newest  criticism  of  the  Gospels,  etc.     It 

is  a  plausible  view,  but  it  is  an  illusive  one ;  for  if  there  is 

one  thing  more  than  another  which  the  logic  of  events  makes 

evident,  it  is,  that  with  the  humanitarian  view  of   Christ  we 

cannot  stop  at  simple,  abstract   Theism,  but  must  go  on  to 

pure  Agnosticism.     This  is  indeed  what  the  larger  number  of 

the    more   logical   minds   which    have   rejected    supernatural 

Christianity  in  our  own  day  are  doing.     Nor  is  the  process 

which  leads  to  this  result  difficult  to  follow.     The  Deism  of  The  weakness 

the  last  century  rejected  Christianity  and  sought  to  establish  of  Deism. 

in  its  place  what  it  called  "  Natural  Eeligion,"  i.e.,  a  belief  in 

God,  in  the  future  life,  in  a  state  of  rewards  and  punishments, 

etc.,  based  on  reason  alone.      But  however  congruous  with 

reason  these  doctrines  may  be  in  the  place  which  they  hold 

in  the  religion  of  Jesus,  it  was  not  really  reason  which  had 

discovered  them,  or  which  gave  assurance  about  them ;  nor 

did  it  follow  that  reason  could  successfully  vindicate  them, 

when  torn  from  their  context,  and  presented  in  the  meagre, 

abstract  form  in  which  they  appeared  in  the  writings  of  the 

deists.     What  the  deists  did  was  to  pick  these  doctrines  out 

of  the  New  Testament,  separating  them  from  the  rest  of  the 


62  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

doctrines  with  which  they  were  associated,  and  denuding  them 

of  everything  which  could  make  them  real  and  vital  to  the 

minds  and  consciences  of  men ;  then  to  haptise  this  cafut 

mortimm  with  the  name  of  "  Natural  Eeligion."     They  were 

doctrines  that  had  their  roots  in  the  Christian  system,  and 

the  arguments  from  reason  with  which  they  were  supported 

were  not  the  real  grounds  of  belief  in  them.     In  the  present 

century  men  are  not  so  easily  satisfied.^     They  see  clearly 

enough   that   all  the   objections   which    have   been    levelled 

against  the  God  of  Eevelation  tell  just  as  powerfully  against 

/  the  God  of  nature  ;    that   to   admit   Christ's  doctrine  of   a 

Heavenly  Father,  of  a  soul  made  in  God's  image,  of  a  special 

providence,  of  prayer,  of  forgiveness  of  sins,  of  a  future  life 

of  happiness  and  misery,  is  already  to  have  crossed  the  line 

which  separates  a  merely  natural  from  a  supernatural  view 

\  of  things ;  and  that  to  reject  Christ's  doctrines  on  these  great 

questions  makes  it  difficult  to  retain  a  Theism  of  any  kind.^ 

Need  of  a        This  is  not  because  a  theistic  view  of  the  world  is  in  itself 

living  Theism,  ^^^^  reasonable  than  a  non-theistic  view — to  admit  this  would 

which  has  its 

correlate  in  be  to  give  up  the  whole  case  on  behalf  of  Christianity.  But 
Revelation.  j|.  ^g  "because  the  kind  of  Theism  that  remains  after  the 
Christian  element  has  been  removed  out  of  it,  is  not  one 
fitted  to  satisfy  either  the  reason  or  the  heart.  It  is  a  pale, 
emasculated  conception,  which,  finding  no  support  in  the  facts 
or  experiences  of  the  spiritual  life,  can  never  stand  against 
the  assaults  made  on  it  from  without.  It  is  here  that 
Pantheism  has  its  advantage  over  Deism.  It  is  indeed  more 
reasonable  to  believe  in  a  living  personal  God,  who  created 
and  who  controls  the  universe,  than  in  the  "  One  and  All "  of 
the  pantheist ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  more  reason- 
able to  believe  in  an  abstract  Deity — a  mere  figment  of  the 
intellect  —  who  stands  in  separation  from  the  world,  and 
yields   no   satisfaction    to   the   religious   life.       Theism   is   a 

1  See  Note  E.— The  Weakness  of  Deism. 

2  This  is  Avhere  not  only  Deism,  but  also  the  so-called  Liberal  Protestantism, 
fails,  in  rejecting  supernatural  Christianity.  See  Note  F.— The  Weakness  of 
Modem  Liberal  Protestantism. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  6^ 

reasonable  view  of   the   universe,  but   it   must  be  a   living 
Theism,  not  a  barren  and  notional  one. 

If,  to  avoid  this  bankruptcy,  the  attempt  is  made  to  deal  insecurity  oj 
in  earnest  with  the  conception  of   a  personal  God,  and  to  ^J^^^^^^^j^t 

^  ■■;  ^         '  ^        off  from  Christ 

reclothe  the  Deity  with  the  warm,  gracious  attributes  which  —Rathbone 
belong  to  the  Father-God  of  Christ,  then  we  have  indeed  ^^^^'  ^*^' 
a  Being  whom  the  soul  can  love,  trust,  and  hold  communion 
with,  but  the  difficulty  recurs  of  believing  Him  to  be  a 
God  who  remains  self-enclosed,  impassive,  uncommunicative, 
towards  creatures  whom  He  has  dowered  with  a  share  of 
His  own  rational  and  moral  excellences,  who  has  so  shut 
Himself  out  by  natural  law  from  direct  contact  with  the 
spirits  that  seek  Him  that  He  can  neither  speak  to  them, 
answer  their  prayers,  help  them  in  trouble,  nor  even  reach 
them  by  inward  succours — a  silent  God,  who  can  no  more 
enter  into  personal  relations  with  His  creatures  than  if  He 
were  ^mpersonal.  Such  a  conception  is  self-contradictory, 
and  cannot  maintain  itself.  One  feels  this  incongruity  very 
powerfully  in  dealing  with  the  Theism  of  such  writers  as  the 
late  Mr.  Eathbone  Greg,  or  Dr.  Martineau,  or  the  authoress 
of  Jlohcvt  Elsmere.  None  of  these  writers  will  admit  the 
possibility  of  miracle ;  logically,  therefore,  they  shut  out  the 
possibility  of  direct  communication  between  God  and  man. 
Yet  none  of  them  can  rest  with  the  cold  abstract  God  of 
Deism  ;  or  with  the  immanent  impersonal  spirit  of  Pantheism  ; 
or  with  the  comfortless  negation  of  Agnosticism.  God  is  with 
them  a  personal  Being ;  His  will  is  ethical ;  communion  with 
Him  is  longed  after,  and  believed  in.  Let  Mr.  Greg's  own 
pathetic  words  tell  how  insecure  is  the  Theism  thus  cut  off 
from  positive  Eevelation.  "My  own  conception,"  he  says, 
"  perhaps  from  early  mental  habit,  perhaps  from  incurable 
and  very  conscious  metaphysical  inaptitude,  approaches  far 
nearer  to  the  old  current  image  of  a  personal  God  than  to 
any  of  the  sublimated  substitutes  of  modern  thought. 
Strauss's  Universum,  Comte's  Humanity,  even  Mr.  Arnold's 
Stream  of  Tendency  that  makes  for  Righteousness,  excite  in  me 


64 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


No  logical 
resting-place 
short  of 
Agnosticism, 


3.  Third 
alternative- 
a  Divine 
Christ,  or 
FessimisfH, 


no  enthusiasm,  command  from  me  no  worship.  I  cannot  pray 
to  the  '  Immensities '  and  the  '  Eternities '  of  Carlyle  ;  they 
proffer  me  no  help ;  they  vouchsafe  me  no  sympathy ;  they 
suggest  no  comfort.  It  may  be  that  such  a  personal  God  is  a 
mere  anthropomorphic  creation.  It  may  be — as  philosophers 
with  far  finer  instruments  of  thought  than  mine  affirm — that 
the  conception  of  such  a  Being,  duly  analysed,  is  demonstrably 
a  self-contradictory  one.  But,  at  least  in  resting  in  it,  I  rest 
in  something  I  almost  seem  to  realise ;  at  least,  I  share  the 
view  which  Jesns  indisputably  held  of  the  Father  whom  He 
obeyed,  communed  with,  and  worshipped."  ^  Surely  it  need 
hardly  be  said  that  a  view  which,  even  while  holding  it,  one 
doubts  may  be  only  a  result  of  "early  mental  habit,"  "a 
mere  anthropomorphic  creation,"  a  "self-contradictory"  con- 
ception, cannot  long  stand  as  a  basis  for  life  ;  nor  will  the  trust 
which  Jesus  had  help  much,  when  one  has  already  rejected 
as  delusion  His  doctrine  of  prayer,  of  special  providence,  of 
forgiveness  of  sins,  and  His  own  Messianic  claims  and 
expectations.  Already  we  tremble  on  the  verge  of  Agnos- 
ticism, if  we  have  not  actually  passed  its  bound. 

I  think,  accordingly,  I  am  justified  in  saying  that  when 
the  ground  of  Divine  Eevelation  is  once  left  behind,  we  have 
no  logical  halting-place  short  of  Agnosticism ;  not  because  a 
theistic  view  of  the  universe  is  unreasonable,  but  because  a 
living  Theism  requires  as  its  complement  belief  in  Eevelation. 

/  "We  have  these  alternatives  :  either  to  revivify  our  Theism  till 
it  approaches  in  the  humane  and  loving  attributes  it  ascribes 
to  God  the  Christian  conception  of  the  Heavenly  Father — in 
which  case  we  are  back  to  a  supernatural  view  of  the  universe  ; 
or,  if  this  is  thought  baseless,  to  dispense  with  the  idea  of 
God  altogether,  and  try  to  explain  the  world  without  reason, 

^  without  final  cause,  without  spiritual  assumptions  of  any  kind. 
3.  Agnosticism  is,  however,  far  from  representing  the  end 

'  of  this  road  along  which  we  had  begun  to  travel  in  rejecting 
the  Divine  in  Christ.     The  final  alternative — one  which  we 

^  Creed  of  Christendom,  Introd.  3rd  ed.  pp.  90,  91. 


AND  ITS  AL  TERN  A  TIVES.  65. 

may  trust  the  world  at  large  will  never  be  called  upon  to 
face — is  a  Divine  Christ  or  Pessimism.     Agnosticism  is  not  a> 
state  in  which  the  mind  of  an  intelligent  being  can  perman- 
ently  rest.     It   is   essentially  a   condition   of   suspense  —  a 
confession  of  ignorance  —  an  abdication  of  thought  on  the 
highest  subjects.^     It  is  not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  possible 
for  the  mind  to  remain  persistently  in  this  neutral,  passive 
attitude.     It  will  press  on  perforce  to  one  or  other  of  the^ 
views  which  present   themselves   as   alternatives — either  to 
Theism,  or  to  Materialism  and  dogmatic  Atheism.^     I  do  not 
speak,  of  course,  of  the  individual  mind,  but  of  the  general 
historical  development.     But  even  Agnosticism  has  brought  Depressing 
with  it  a  train  of  baleful  results.     With  the  loss  of  certainty  ^*'?/^^^«^^  ^f 

Agnosticism  : 

on  the  highest  questions  of  existence  there  comes  inevitably  cuts  the  ne>-ve 
a  lowering  of  the  pulse  of  human  endeavour  all  round — a  of^^^^onai 

belief  in 

loosening  of  certainty  even  about  morals,  for  why  should  ^^^^^^^j., 
these  remain  uuaffected  when  everything  else  is  going — and 
as  we  see  to-day,  in  much  of  the  speculative  thought  of 
France  and  Germany,  a  hopelessness  about  the  future.  Eor, 
obviously,  when  this  point  is  reached,  the  rational  ground  is 
taken  away  even  from  belief  in  progress.^  When  the  idea  of 
God,  which  is  equivalent  to  the  idea  of  a  reason  at  the 
foundation  of  things,  is  surrendered — whether  in  Agnosticism, 
or  in  some  form  of  dogmatic  denial,  makes  little  difference — 
it  becomes  a  wholly  unwarranted  assumption  that  things 
must  certainly  go  on  from  better  to  better.  The  opposite 
may  quite  as  well  be  the  case,  and  progress,  now  that  a  given 
height  is  reached,  may  rather  be  from  better  to  worse.  The^ 
analogy  of  nature  shows  that  this  is  the  law  in  regard  to 

^  Generally,  however,  under  the  surface  of  professed  Agnosticism,  there  will 
be  found  some  more  or  less  positive  opinions  about  the  origin  and  nature  of 
things,  all  of  them  agreeing  in  this,  that  they  negate  the  belief  in  God. 

2  On  the  continent  there  are  fewer  agnostics,  but  more  atheists  and 
materialists,  than  with  us.  **In  Germany,"  says  Karl  Peters,  "things  are 
come  to  such  a  pass  that  one  is  obliged  to  ask  a  sort  of  absolution  if  one  does 
not  swim  with  the  prevailing  atheistic-monistic  stream." — Willenswelt  and 
WeltwUle,  p.  350. 

2  See  Note  G. —Christianity  and  the  Idea  of  Progress. 

5 


66 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


Transition  to 
Pessimism  — 
use  of  great 
pessimistic 
systems. 


natural  life.  The  plant  blooms,  reaches  its  acme,  and  dies. 
So,  it  may  be  plausibly  argued,  it  will  be  with  humanity. 
The  fact  that  some  progress  has  been  made  in  the  past  does 
not  guarantee  that  this  progress  will  go  on  indefinitely; 
rather,  the  spur  to  this  progress  consisted  in  what  we  are 
now  told  are  illusions,  and  when  these  are  exploded  the 
motives  to  progress  are  gone.  A  more  highly  evolved  society 
may  lead  to  an  increase  of  misery  rather  than  of  happiness ; 
the  growth  of  enlightenment,  instead  of  adding  to  men's 
enjoyments,  may  result  in  stripping  them  successively  of  the 
illusions  that  remain,  and  may  leave  them  at  last  sad,  weary, 
disappointed,  with  an  intolerable  consciousness  of  the  burden 
and  wretchedness  of  existence.^  All  this  is  not  fancy.  The 
despairing,  pessimistic  spirit  I  am  speaking  of  has  already 
taken  hold  of  extensive  sections  of  society,  and  is  giving 
startling  evidences  of  its  presence.  For  the  first  time  on 
European  soil  we  see  large  and  influential  systems  springing 
up,  and  gaining  for  themselves  wide  popularity  and  accept- 
ance, which  have  for  their  root  idea  exactly  this  conception 
of  the  inherent  irrationality  and  misery  of  existence.  There 
have  always  been  individual  thinkers  with  a  tendency  to  take 
a  prejudiced  and  hopeless  view  of  life,  but  their  reveries  have 
not  been  much  regarded.  But  here,  strange  to  say,  under 
the  very  shadow  of  this  boasted  progress  of  the  nineteenth 
century — in  the  very  midst  of  its  enlightenment  and  civilisa- 
tion and  wealth  —  we  see  Pessimism  raising  its  head  as  a 
serious,  carefully  thought-out  philosophy  of  existence,  and, 
instead  of  being  scouted  and  laughed  at  as  an  idle  dream,  it 


^  Pessimism  reverses  Pascal's  saying  that  the  greatness  of  man  consists  in 
thought.  Thought,  according  to  Pessimism,  is  the  fatal  gift.  "Well  for 
those,"  Schopenhauer  thinks,  "who  have  no  consciousness  of  existence.  The 
life  of  the  animal  is  more  to  be  envied  than  that  of  man  ;  the  life  of  the  plant 
is  better  than  that  of  the  fish  in  the  water,  or  even  of  the  oyster  on  the  rock. 
Non-being  is  better  than  being,  and  unconsciousness  is  the  blessedness  of  what 
does  exist.  The  best  would  be  if  all  existence  were  annihilated."— Cf.  Luthardt, 
Die  mod.  Welt.  p.  189.  "The  height  of  misery  is  not  that  of  being  man  ;  it 
is,  being  man,  to  despise  oneself  sufficiently  to  regret  that  one  is  not  an 
animal."— Caro,  Le  Pessimisme,  p.  135. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  €7 

meets  with  passionate  acceptance  from  multitudes.^     The  same  Pessimism  in 
spirit  will  be   found  reflected  by  those  who  care  to  note  its  ^^^  literature 

— sadness  of 

symptoms,  in  much  of  our  current  literature,  in  the  serious  the  sceptical 
raising  and  discussion,  for  example,  of  the  question  already  ^^^^^^' 
familiar  to  us — Is  life  worth  living  ?     Specially  noticeable  is 
the    tone  of    sadness  which   pervades    much  of    the   nobler 
sceptical  thinking  of  the  present  day — the  tone  of  men  who 
do  not  think  lightly  of  parting  with  religion,  but  feel  that 
with  it  has  gone  the  hope  and  gladness  of  earlier  days.     ThisN 
Pessimism  of   scepticism  is  to  me  one  of  the  saddest  and 
most  significant  phenomena  of  modern  times.^     And  granting 
the  premises  it  starts  from,  what  other  conclusion  is  possible  ? 
Deprive  the  world  of  God,  and  everything  becomes  an  insol- 
uble mystery,  history  a  scene  of  wrecked  illusions,  belief  in 
progress  a  superstition,  and  life  in  general 

''A  tale 
Told  by  an  idiot,  full  of  sound  and  fury, 
Signifying  nothing."  ^  ^ 


II.  The  descent  from  faith  in  Christ  has  landed  us  in  the  //.  The  up- 
abyss  of  Pessimism.     But  just  at  this  lowest  point,  where  the  "^^^  .^fl^^ 
light  of  religious  faith  might  seem  utterly  extinguished,  a  Pessimism  to 
return  movement  is  felt  to  be  inevitable.     For  Pessimism,  \^^^^"^' 
no  more  than  Theism,  can  escape  the  necessity  laid  upon  it  of 
giving  to  itself    some  account   of   things   as  they   are  —  of 
constructing    a    "  Weltanschauung " ;     and     the    moment    it 
attempts  to  do  this,  making  naked  the  principle  on  which  it 
rests,  its  own  insufficiency  as  a  philosophy  of  existence  and 
of  life  stands  glaring  and  confessed.     Possibly  the  attempt  to  ^Unsatisfactori- 
work  out  Pessimism  as  a  system  will  never  be  made  with '^^"^"^^^^'^f^'''' 

ism  as  a  tneor 

much  more  thoroughness,  or  with  better  chances   of  success,  of  existence— 
than  has  already  been  done  in    the   monumental  works   of  ^^  '^°^^!  ^^^^ 

to  Theism. 

Schopenhauer    and   Hartmann.  *       But    the   very   thorough- 

^  See  Note  H. — The  Prevalence  of  Pessimism. 

^  See  Appendix  to  Lecture — The  Pessimism  of  Scepticism. 

^  "Macbeth,"  act  v.  scene  5. 

^  See  Note  I.— The  Literature  of  Pessimism. 


68 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


The  dialectic 
of  Pessimism 
— Schopen- 
hauer and 
Haj'tmann. 


goingness  of  the  attempt  is  the  demonstration  of  its  futility. 
Of  all  theories,  that  which  explains  the  origin  of  the  universe 
by  a  mistake — which  accounts  for  it  by  the  blind  rushing 
into  existence  of  an  irrational  force,  call  it  "  Will "  or  what 
we  please — is  surely  the  most  incredible.^  How  came  this 
irrational  will-force  to  be  there  ?  What  moved  it  to  this 
insensate  decision  ?  In  what  state  was  it  before  it  committed 
this  enormous  blunder  of  rushing  into  existence  ?  How  came 
it  to  be  possessed  of  that  potential  wealth  of  ideas  which  now 
are  realised  in  the  world  ?  Of  what  use  were  they  if  they 
were  never  intended  to  be  called  into  existence  ?  What  I 
am  at  present  concerned  with,  however,  is  not  to  refute 
Pessimism,  but  rather  to  show  how,  as  a  first  step  in  an 
upward  movement  back  to  Christ,  by  its  own  immanent 
dialectic  it  refutes  itself — inverts,  in  fact,  its  own  starting- 
point,  and  works  itself  round  into  a  species  of  Theism. 

Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann  both  recognise  that  there  is 
in  the  universe  not  only  "  Will "  but  "  Idea,"  and  the  manner 
in  which  they  deal  with  this  element  of  "  Idea  "  is  one  of  the 
most  curious  examples  of  the  inversion  of  an  original  starting- 
point  in  the  history  of  philosophy.  For,  in  the  course  of  its 
development.  Pessimism  has  actually  adopted  as  its  leading 
principle  the  thought  of  a  rational  teleology  in  the  universe, 
and  as  a  consequence,  as  above  remarked,  has  worked  itself 
back  to  Theism.  How  this  comes  about  it  is  not  difficult  to 
show.     The  crucial  point  for  all  systems  of  Pessimism  is  the 

^  These  Pessimistic  theories  are  not  without  their  roots  in  the  philosophies  of 
Fichte,  Schelling,  and  Hegel.  Cf.  Fiehte's  view  of  the  Absolute  as  "Will"  ; 
and  Schelling's  "irrational"  ground  of  the  Divine  nature  (after  Bohme).  In 
his  Philosophie  und  Religion  (1804),  Schelling  boldly  describes  the  creation  as 
the  result  of  an  "  Abfall" — the  original  assertion  by  the  Ego  of  its  independence. 
"This  inexplicable  and  timeless  act  is  the  original  sin  or  primal  fall  of  the 
spirit,  which  we  expiate  in  the  circles  of  time — existence  "  (cf.  Professor  Seth's 
From  Kant  to  Hegel,  p.  65).  Hegel  also,  in  his  own  way,  speaks  of  creation  as 
an  "Abfall."  "It  is  in  the  Son,"  he  says,  "in  the  determination  of  dis- 
tinction, that  progressive  determination  proceeds  to  further  distinction.  .  .  . 
This  transition  in  the  moment  of  the  Son  is  thus  expressed  by  Jacob  Bohme — 
that  the  first-born  was  Lucifer,  the  light-bearer,  the  bright,  the  clear  one  ;  but 
he  turned  in  upon  himself  in  imagination,  i.e.  he  made  himself  independent, 
passed  over  into  being,  and  so  M\"—PhiL  d.  Pel.  ii.  p.  251  (  WerJce,  vol.  xii.). 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  69 

presence  of  reason  in  the  universe.  How,  if  the  basis  of  the  _ 
universe  is  irrational,  does  reason  come  to  find  a  place  in  it 
at  all  ?  For,  manifestly,  account  for  it  as  we  may,  there  is 
reason  in  the  universe  now.  The  universe  itself  is  a  law- 
connected  whole ;  there  is  order  and  plan,  organisation  and 
system,  utility  and  beauty,  means  and  ends.  Above  all,  in 
man  himself,  if  nowhere  else,  there  is  conscious  reason — the 
very  instrument  by  which  this  irrationality  of  the  universe 
is  discovered.  There  is  evidently  more  here  than  blind, 
purposeless  will.  How  is  its  existence  to  be  explained  ?  ^ 
Schopenhauer  postulates  "  Idea."  In  accounting  for  nature,  "  war  and 
he  has  to  suppose  that  in  this  blind,  purposeless  will  there  "-^^Jf "— ^'^^^''' 
lies  potentially  a  whole  world  of  ideas,  representing  all  the 
stages  and  kingdoms  through  which  nature  advances  in  the 
course  of  its  history.^  Hartmann  unites  "  Will "  and  "  Idea  " 
yet  more  closely,  regarding  them  as  co-ordinate  attributes  of 
the  Absolute,  though  still,  somehow,  the  will  is  supposed  to 
be  in  itself  a  purely  irrational  force.  It  is  only  when  the 
will  has  made  the  mistake  of  rushing  into  existence  that  it 
lays  hold  on  the  "  Idea  "  as  a  means  of  delivering  itself  from 
the  unblessedness  of  its  new  condition.  To  this  end  the 
universe  is  represented  as  ordered  with  the  highest  wisdom, 
the  goal  of  its  development  being  the  production  of  the 
conscious  agent,  man,  through  whom  the  Eedemption  of  the 
world-spirit  is  to  be  accomplished.  I  do  not  pursue  these 
"  metaphysics  of  wonderland "  further.  I  only  notice  the 
extraordinary  contradictions  in  which  Hartmann  involves 
himself  in  his  conception  of  the  Absolute — "  the  Unconscious,"  Hartmann: s 
as  he  prefers  to  term  it — and  the  extraordinary  transforma-  'Unconscious 

^  •'  — attributes  to 

tion  it  undergoes  in  his  hands.      The  Absolute  is  unconscious,  ?v,  intelligence, 
and  needs   to  create  for  itself   an  organ  of  consciousness  i'^'^^sdom, fore- 

sight,  purpose. 

1  Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstelhmg,  i.  pp.  185,  206  (Eng.  trans,  pp.  203, 
219  ff.).  Karl  Peters  remarks  :  "If  the  alone  Will  bears  in  itself  the  stages  of 
the  World-All  as  eternal  ideas — how  can  Schopenhauer  call  it  an  absolutely- 
irrational  Will  ?  And,  if  he  conceives  of  it  as  a  radically  blind  Will,  as  an  insane 
and  altogether  groundless  'Drang,'  how  can  he  vindicate  for  it  these  eternal 
ideas?" — Willenswelt,  p.  129. 


70  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

man  before  it  can  attain  deliverance  from  its  unblessedness. 
Yet  it  knows,  plans,  contrives,  orders  everything  with  con- 
summate wisdom,  works  out  its  designs  with  a  precision  that 
is  unerring,  etc.^  The  contradiction  here  is  too  patent.  Tor, 
if  unconscious,  how  can  we  speak  of  this  Absolute  as  un- 
blessed ?  Or  how  can  we  think  of  it  as  knowing  and 
planning?  Hartmann,  therefore,  changes  his  ground,  and 
The  "  Uncon-  speaks  in  other  places  of  his  Absolute  rather  as  siipra- 
•^^^f"^"^^^^^^-^  conscious;  2  elsewhere,  aorain,  in  terms  akin  to  those  of  Mr. 

a  ^  supra-  ° 

conscious."  Spcuccr,  as  an  "Unknowable"  —  incapable  of  being  repre- 
sented in  forms  of  our  intelligence.^  But  if  the  Absolute  is 
supra-conscious,  i.e.,  exists  in  a  state  higher  than  the  ordinary- 
consciousness,  why  should  it  need  the  latter  to  help  it  out  of 
its  misery  ?  The  climax  is  reached  when,  in  a  later  work — 
while  still  holding  to  the  view  that  the  Absolute  is  not  a 
self-conscious  Personality  —  Hartmann  invests  it  with  most 
Moral  attri-  pi  the  attributes  characteristic  of  Deity,  sees  in  it,  e.g.,  the 
butes  ascribed  rrround,  not  onlv  of  a  natural,  but  of  a  moral  order,  makes  it 

to  the  Absolute  o  '  •/  '  ' 

—now  called    the  objcct  of  rcligious  worship,  attributes  to  it,  not  simply 
God.  omnipotence   and    wisdom,  but    righteousness    and    holiness, 

views  it  as  a  source  of  Revelation  and  grace,  expressly  names 
it  God  1  *  We  are  here  far  enough  from  the  original  assump- 
tion of  a  primitive,  irrational  will — in  fact,  what  we  see  is 
Pessimism  passing  over  in  all  but  the  name  into  Theism.     It 

^  ' '  The  Unconscious  wills  in  one  act  all  the  terms  of  a  process,  means  and 
end,  etc.,  not  before,  beside,  or  beyond,  but  in  the  result  itself." — Ptiil.  d. 
Unbewussten,  ii.  p.  60  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  "The  Unconscious,  it  now  appears,  has,  after  all,  a  kind  of  consciousness — 
is  *a  transcendent  supra-mundane  consciousness,'  'anything  but  blind,  rather 
far-seeing  and  clairvoyant,'  'superior  to  all  consciousness,  at  once  unconscious 
and  supra-conscious' (!),  its  'mode  of  thinking  is,  in  truth,  above  conscious- 
ness."—PA«7.  d.  Unbewussten,  pp.  246,  247,  258,  etc.  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  Phil.  d.  Unbeivussten,  pp.  49,  223,  246,  etc.  (Eng.  trans.).  Schopenhauer 
also  declares  his  "Will"  to  be  in  itself,  i.e.  apart  from  its  phenomenal  mani- 
festations, an  Unknowable,  possibly  possessing  "ways  of  existing,  determina- 
tions, qualities,  which  are  absolutely  unknowable  and  incomprehensible  to  us, 
and  which  remain  ever  as  its  nature  when  it  has  abrogated  its  phenomenal 
character,  and  for  our  knowledge  has  passed  into  empty  nothingness." — Die 
Welt  als  Wllle  (Eng.  trans.),  ii.  p.  408. 

*  Jieligionsphilosophie :  Part  II.,  Phil,  des  Geistes,  pp.  74-89. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES,  71 

remained  only  that  this  transition  should  be  explicitly  made.  Transition  in 
and  this   has   been  done  by  a  disciple  of  the  school,  Karl  ^<^^^-^Jt^^ 

from  Fessim- 

Peters,  whose  work,  Willenswelt  und  Weltwille,  is  one  of  the  ism  to  explicit 
acutest  criticisms  of  previous  Pessimism  I  know.  With  him  Iheism. 
we  finally  leave  the  ground  of  the  philosophy  of  the  "  Uncon- 
scious," and  come  round  to  a  Theism  in  which  we  have  the 
full  recognition  of  God  as  a  self-conscious,  wise,  good,  holy 
Personality,  whose  providence  is  over  all,  and  whose  ends  all 
things  subserve.^ 

The    theories    of    Schopenhauer    and    Hartmann,    though  Theaiter- 
pessimistic,  might  with  equal  propriety  have  been  classed  in  "p^^J/^^{^^_ 
the    family  of    pantheistic  systems.      When   dealing   at   an  its  degradation 
earlier  stage  with   the  downward  movement   from   faith  in  ^o  Materialism 

"  {Strauss, 

Christ,  through  Agnosticism  to  Pessimism,  I  purposely  re-  Feuerback). 
served  this  alternative  of  Pantheism.  This  was  not  because 
the  subject  is  in  itself  unimportant,  but  because  it  comes  at 
last  to  the  old  dilemma,  and  can  best  be  treated  in  its  higher 
aspect  as  a  stage  in  the  upward  advance  to  Theism.  Pan-^ 
theism  shares  the  fate  of  every  incomplete  system,  in  being 
compelled  to  pass  judgment  on  itself,  and  either  to  sink  to 
something  lower,  or  to  pass  up  to  something  higher.  I  refer  • 
for  proof  to  Germany,  which  has  given  birth  to  some  of  its 
noblest  forms,  but  where  also  history  shows  how  possible  it 
is  to  descend  at  one  step  from  the  loftiest  heights  of  over- 
strained Idealism  to  gross  Materialism.  Fichte  and  Schelling 
and  Hegel  were  followed  by  Strauss  and  Feuerbach.^  The 
logic  of  the  process  is  again  not  difiEicult  to  trace.  If 
universal  reason  is  the  all,  and  the  finite  in  comparison  with 
it  nothing,  in  another  point  of  view  it  is  the  finite  that  is 
all,  and  reason  that  is  nothing,  seeing  that  in  the  finite  only 
it  attains  to  actual  existence.  Concede  the  premiss,  the 
Absolute  has  reality  only  in  the  universe,  and  it  is  but  a  short 
step  to  the  conclusion,  the  universe  alone  is  real.^     Interpret 

^  See  Note  J. — Transition  from  Pessimism  to  Theism — Hartmann  and  Karl 
Peters. 

^  See  Note  K. — Materialism  in  Germ.any. 

^  "  If,'  says  Dorner,  "God  be  once  defined  as  the  essence  of  the  world,  it  is  a 


72 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


The  nobler 
movement — 
elevation  to 
Theism. 


Fichte  and 
Schelling. 


the  universe  now,  in  accordance  with  the  "  modern  "  concep- 
tion, in  terms  of  matter  and  motion,  and  Feuerbach's  dictum 
is  reached — "  Man  is  what  he  eats."  The  goal  of  this  is  the 
old  plunge  into  Nihilism  and  Pessimism,  in  which  we  have 
just  seen  that  the  mind  cannot  remain. 

The  other  alternative  is,  however,  possible  to  Pantheism, 
by  holding  fast  to  the  rational  element  contained  in  it,  to 
correct  and  purify  itself  by  a  return  to  Theism ;  and  this  is 
the  movement  we  see  taking  place  in  the  later  forms  of  the 
philosophies  of  Fichte  and  Schelling,  and  in  the  speculative 
Theism  of  the  later  Hegelians.  In  judging  of  these  systems 
we  must  not  be  misled  by  too  narrow  a  use  of  the  word 
"  Theism."  The  Theism  of  the  writers  I  refer  to  is  in  many 
respects  imperfect,  and   bears  throughout  the  marks  of  its 

/  speculative  origin.  Yet,  in  principle,  the  line  between  Pan- 
theism and  Theism  is  crossed  whenever  God  is  conceived  of 
no  longer  as  an  impersonal  Force  or  Idea,  but  as  a  spiritual, 
self-conscious  principle  at  the  basis  of  the  universe  —  as  a 
knowing,  willing  Being,  with  whom  man  can  sustain,  not  only 

^  natural,  but  moral  and  spiritual  relations.  There  may  be 
difficulties  at  this  stage  as  to  whether  the  term  "  personal " 
is  a  suitable  term  to  apply  to  the  Divine ;  but  it  is,  never- 
theless, a  theistic  conception  of  God  which  is  shaping  itself, 
and  the  purgation  of  the  system  from  remaining  pantheistic 
elements  is  only  a  question  of  time.  What,  for  instance,  but 
an  approximation  to  Theism  is  implied  in  such  words  as 
Fichte's  in  his  fine  apostrophe, — "  Sublime  and  Living  Will ! 
named  by  no  name,  compassed  by  no  thought !  I  may  well 
raise  my  soul  to  Thee,  for  Thou  and  I  are  not  divided  ! 
Thy  voice  sounds  within  me,  mine  resounds  in  Thee ;  and 
all  my  thoughts,  if  they  be  but  good  and  true,  live  in  Thee 
also.  .  .  .  Thou   art   best  known   to   the  childlike,  devoted, 

transposition  of  subject  and  predicate  logically  allowable,  when  Feuerbacli, 
taking  the  idea  seriously,  counted  the  essence  of  the  world  to  be  a  part  of  the 
world,  raade  the  world  the  subject,  and  reduced  God  to  a  mere  predicate  of  the 
world.  The  transition  was  thus  made  to  Anthropologism,  the  forerunner  of 
Materialism."— PersoTi  of  Christ,  v.  p.  160. 


AND  ITS  AL  TERN  A  TIVES.  73 

simple  mind.  To  it  Thou  art  the  searcher  of  hearts,  who 
seest  its  inmost  depths ;  the  ever-present  witness  of  its  truth, 
who  knowest  though  all  the  world  know  it  not.  Thou  art 
the  Father  who  ever  desirest  its  good,  who  rulest  all  things 
for  the  best.  .  .  .  How  thou  art,  I  may  not  know.  But,  let 
me  be  what  I  ought  to  be,  and  Thy  relations  to  me — the 
mortal  —  and  to  all  mortals,  lie  open  before  my  eyes,  and 
surround  me  more  clearly  'than  the  consciousness  of  my  own 
existence.  Thou  workest  in  me  the  knowledge  of  my  duty, 
of  my  vocation  in  the  world  of  reasonable  beings ; — how,  I 
know  not,  nor  need  I  to  know.  Thou  knowest  what  I  think 
and  what  I  will : — how  Thou  canst  know,  through  what  act 
thou  bringest  about  that  consciousness,  I  cannot  understand. 
.  .  .  Thou  wiliest  that  my  free  obedience  shall  bring  with  it 
eternal  consequences : — the  act  of  Thy  will  I  cannot  com-  "^ 
prehend,  I  only  know  that  it  is  not  lik-e  mine.  Thou  doesf, 
and  Thy  will  itself  is  the  deed ;  but  the  way  of  Thy 
working  is  not  as  my  ways  —  I  cannot  trace  it."^  If 
this  is  Pantheism,  are  we  not  all  pantheists  ?  If  this  is 
Agnosticism,  is  it  not  an  Agnosticism  in  which  we  must  all  ^ 
share  ?  The  moment  in  spiritual  Pantheism  which  impels  ^ 
to  this  development  is  of  course  the  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  the  universe  has  its  ground  in  reason.  If  this  position 
is  to  be  safeguarded  against  the  lapse  into  Materialism,  it 
must  free  itself  from  the  internal  contradiction  of  supposing 
that  there  can  be  thought  without  a  thinker  f  reason  without 
a  subject  to  which  the  reason  belongs ;  rational  ends  posited 
and  executed  without  intelligent  and  self-conscious  purpose ; 

1  "The  Vocation  of  Man"  (Die  Beatimmvng  des  Menschen)  in  Fichte's 
"Popular  Works,"  p.  365  (Eng.  trans.). — See  Note  L. — Fichte's  Later 
Philosophy. 

^  "In  spite  of  Fichte's  imperious  tone,"  says  Professor  Seth,  "and  his 
vvai-ning  that  we  are  merely  setting  the  seal  to  our  own  philosophic  incom- 
petency, we  must  summon  up  all  our  hardihood,  and  openly  confess  that  to 
speak  of  thought  as  self-existent,  without  any  conscious  Being  whose  the  thought 
is,  conveys  no  meaning  to  our  minds.  Thought  exists  only  as  the  thought  of  a 
thinker  ;  it  must  be  centred  somewhere." — Hegelianism  and  Personality,  p.  73. 
He  had  formerly  expressed  himself  differently. — From  Kant  to  Hegel,  p.  76. 


74 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


British  Neo- 
Hegelianism 
—  T.  H. 

Green, 


j  ^  moral  order  without  a  moral  will.  In  the  case  of  Fichte  and 
Schelling,  this  revolution  in  their  philosophies  is  seen  taking 
The  Hegelian  place  within  their  lifetime ;  in  the  case  of  Hegel,  it  is  seen 
development.  -^^  ^^  development  of  his  philosophy,  in  the  hands  of  his 
disciples,  into  a  speculative  Theism.  In  Yatke  and  Bieder- 
mann — two  prominent  representatives — the  Theism  is  still 
very  shadowy  and  incomplete ;  in  I.  H.  Fichte  and  Pfleiderer 
of  Berlin,  it  attains  to  full  and  explicit  recognition.  The 
latter  writer,  in  particular,  takes  strong  ground,  and  from  his 
own  point  of  view  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest 
defenders  of  theistic  positions  in  recent  times.  In  our  own 
country  we  have  the  Neo-Hegelian  movement,  best  represented 
by  the  late  Mr.  Green,  of  Oxford,  and  in  him  also  the  specu- 
lative spirit  is  seen  allying  itself  very  closely  with  the  spirit 
of  religion,  with  the  result  that  his  philosophy  almost  inevit- 
ably passes  over  into  Theism.  On  the  metaphysical  side,  God 
is  already  to  Mr.  Green  an  "  Eternal  Self-Consciousness  "  ^ — 
the  author  and  sustainer  of  the  system  of  relations  which 
we  call  the  universe.  But,  on  the  religious  side.  He  is 
thought  of  much  more  positively  as  a  conscious  Being  who 
is  in  eternal  perfection  all  that  man  has  it  in  him  to  come  to 
be — "  a  Being  of  perfect  understanding  and  perfect  love  " 
— an  infinite  Spirit,  present  to  the  soul,  but  other  than 
itself,  towards  whom  "  the  attitude  of  man  at  his  highest  and 
completest  could  still  only  be  that  which  we  have  described 
as  self-abasement  before  an  ideal  of  holiness."  ^  The  meta- 
physical contradictions  which  still  inhere  in  the  Neo-Hegelian 
theory  have  been  well  pointed  out  by  one  —  formerly  an 
ardent  Hegelian — who  has  himself  lived  through  the  theory 
he  criticises — Prof.  Seth  of  Edinburgh.  In  him,  in  the  line 
of  this  development,  we  reach  at  length  a  perfectly  unambig- 
uous position.     "  It  must  not  be  forgotten,"  he  says,  "  that  if 


Prof.  Seth. 


^  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  passim. 

2  Pp.   93,    142  of   "  Memoir "  by  Nettleship, 
Professor  Green's  profound   Christian   feeling, 
Christianity,  are  well  brought  out  in  the  same  ' 
works. 


in  Green's  Works,  vol.  iii. 
with  his  ideological  views  of 
'Memoir,"  and  accompanying 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  75 

we  are  to  keep  the  name  God  at  all,  or  any  equivalent  term, 
subjectivity — an  existence  of  God  for  Himself,  analogous  to 
our  own  personal  existence,  though  doubtless  transcending  it 
infinitely  in  innumerable  ways — is  an  essential  element  of 
the  conception.  .  .  .  God  may  be,  must  be,  infinitely  more — 
we  are  at  least  certain  that  He  cannot  be  less — than  we  I 
know  ourselves  to  be."^  ' 

The  Theism  we  have  thus  gained  embraces  the  two  notions  Theism  hnpeh 
of  God  as   self  -  conscious   reason,  and   God  as   moral  will.  ^  ^  \\!^ 

Revelation. 

Once,  however,  this   ground   of    Theism  is   reached,  we  are 
compelled,  in  order  to   secure  it,  to  advance  a  step  further, 
viz.,  to  the  thought   of    God   as   self  -  revealing.      We   have*^ 
already   seen   that   Theism   can  only   be   secured   if  God   is 
thought  of  as  standing  in  a  living  relation  to  m.ankind — that 
is,  as  interesting  Himself   in  their  welfare,  and  capable  of 
entering    into    moral    and    spiritual    fellowship    with    them. 
How  can  one  earnestly  believe  in   a    living,  personal  God,  \ 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  in  man,  as  a  being  constituted  for 
moral  ends,  and  not  also  believe  that  it  is  the  will  of  God 
that  man  should  know  Him,  and  be  guided  by  Him  to  the 
fulfilment  of  his  destiny  ?     It  is,  accordingly,  a  most  note- 
worthy fact,  that  in  all  the  higher  theology  of  the  time — 
even  rationalistic  theology — the  attempt  is  made  to  come  to  a 
right  understanding  with  this  concept  of  Eevelation.     Strange  General  recog- 
as  it  may  sound  to  many,  there  is  no  proposition  on  which  ^"^^^^^  "^ 
theologians  of  all  schools  at  the  present  day  are  more  willing  systems  of 
to  agree  than  this  —  that  all  knowledge  of  God,  and  con-  ^^^  ^^^^  ^-f 

Revelation. 

sequently  all  religion,  rests  on  Eevelation ;  and  that,  if  the 
true  idea  of  God  is  to  be  maintained,  He  must  be  thought  of 
as  self  -  revealing.  This  truth  is  emphasised,  not  in  the 
orthodox  systems  alone,  but  in  the  theologies,  e.g.,  of  Bieder- 
mann,  of  Lipsius,  of  Pfleiderer,  of  Kitschl — even,  as  I  said 
before,   of    the    pessimist    Hartmann,  who,  in   his   book   on 

^  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  pp.  222-224.  Mr.  Green's  theory  is  discussed 
more  fully  in  Professor  Veitch's  Knowing  and  Being,  which  touches  many  vital 
points.     Cf.  Lect.  III.— Note  D. 


76  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

religion,  has,  with  curious  irony,  his  chapters  on  faith  and 
Eevelation.  The  point  of  difference  arises  when  we  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  Eevelation,  and  specially  when  we  pass 
from  the  sphere  of  natural  to  that  of  supernatural  Eevelation. 
Modern  theory  Supernatural  Eevelation  the  theologians  of  the  liberal  school 
of  Revelation—  — pfleidercr,  Lipsius,  etc. — will  not  allow  us  to  speak  of ;  or 

natural  and 

supernatural   rather,  natural  and  supernatural  are  with  them  but  different 
different  sides   gj^jgg  ^f  ^^  ^^^^  proccss.     That  which,  on  the  Divine  side, 

of  the  same  -r^        ,      .  .  •  t         •        ^         ^ 

process,  IS  Viewed  as  Eevelation,  is,  on  the  human  side,  simply  the 

natural  development  of  man's  moral  and  religious  conscious- 
ness, and  vice  versa.  In  the  same  way,  every  truly  original 
moment  in  the  life  of  a  man,  every  birth-moment  of  a  new 
truth  in  his  soul,  every  flash  of  insight  into  some  new  secret 
or  law  of  nature,  is  a  Eevelation.  This,  which  is  the  subtlest 
view  of  Eevelation  at  present  in  the  field,  is  not  to  be  set 
aside  without  an  attempt  to  do  justice  to  what  is  true  in  it.^ 
I  am,  for  my  part,  not  concerned  to  deny  that  there  is  a  side  of 
truth,  and  a  very  important  one,  in  this  theory.  If  it  sounds 
deistical  to  say,  "  Eevelation  is  only  through  the  natural 
activities  of  mind,"  it  may,  on  the  other  hand,  be  a  whole- 
some corrective  to  a  deistic  view  to  say  that  God  is  immanent 
in  these  activities,  and  that  through  them  He  mediates  His 
Eevelation  to  the  human  spirit  —  that  what  we  call  the 
"  natural "  development  of  mind  involves,  when  rightly  under- 
stood, a  factor  of  Eevelation.  Nor  can  the  line  ever  be  drawn 
so  finely  between  natural  and  supernatural  Eevelation  as  to 
enable  us  to  say,  "  Here  precisely  the  natural  ends  and  the 
Inadequacy  ojF^  supernatural  begins."  The  theory  in  question,  therefore,  I 
its  end  does'  ^^^^^  ^^  disposcd  to  Call  inadequate,  rather  than  false;  or 
not  correspond  false  Only  as  it  professes  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  Eevelation. 
^^.  ^  f  For  in  the  latter,  it  must  be  contended  that  we  have  more 

than   can   be  accounted   for   by  mere   natural   development. 
Taking  it  even  on  its  own  ground,  this  theory  involves  the 

^  Cf.  on  tins  theory  Biedermann,  Christ.  Dogmatik,  i.  pp.  264-288  ;  Lipsius, 
Dogmatik,  pp.  41-68  ;  Pfleiderer,  Religlonsphilosophie,  iv.  pp.  46-94,  specially 
pp.  64-75  (Eng.  trans.),  and  Grwidriss,  pp.  17-22.  See  Note  M.— Modern 
Theory  of  Revelation. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  77 

valuable  admission  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  to  make  Himself  ^ 

known  to  man,  and  that  He  has  provided  in  the  constitution 

of  things  for  giving  him  the  knowledge  that  is  necessary  for 

him.     The  only  criticism  I  shall  make  at  present  upon  this 

theory  is — and  I  think  it  is  one  which  goes  to  the  heart  of 

the  matter — that  in  some  sense  the  end  of  the  theory  is  the 

refutation  of  the  beginning  of  it.     The  point  from  which  we 

start  is,  that  God  can  be  known  only  through  the  natural 

activities  of  the  mind.     He  is  present  in  these  activities  as 

He  is  present  in  all  the  other  functions  of  our  mental,  moral, 

and  even  physical  being ;  and  He  is  present  in  no  other  way. 

But  the  peculiarity  of  this  theory  is  that  it  ends  in  a  view  of 

God  which  affirms  the  possibility  of  that  with  the  denial  of 

which  it  set  out — the  possibility  of  direct  communion  between  The  God  of 

God  and  the  soul.     It  is  not  disputed  by  any  of  the  advocates  v^"^,  ^^     , 

^  ./         ./  dzrect  access  to 

of  these  views  that  the  highest  point  in  this  self-revelation  of  the  souls  of 

God  is  the  Eevelation  given  to  men  through  Jesus  Christ.  ^'^'^* 

But  the  God  and  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  is  not  a 

Being  who  communicates  with  man  only  in  the  indirect  way 

which   this   theory  supposes.      He  is  a  Being  who  Himself 

draws  near  to  man,  and  seeks  fellowship  with  him  ;  whose 

relations  with  the  spirits  He  has  made  are  free  and  personal ; 

who  is  as  lovingly  communicative  as   man,  on  his  part,  is 

expected  to  be  trustfully  receptive ;  to  whom  man  can  speak, 

and  He  answers.     The  simply  natural  is  here  transcended, 

and  we  are  in  the  region  of  direct  intercourse  of  spirit  with  ^ 

spirit.     And  this  view  of  God  is  not  disjjuted  by  the  writers 

I  am  here  referring   to,  who  deny  supernatural  Eevelation. 

Dr.  Martineau  says,  in  words  of  deep  wisdom,  "  How  should  Martineau 

related  spirits,  joined  by  a  common  creative  aim,  intent  on  ««^^^«^^''^''- 

whatever  things  are  pure  and  good,  live  in  presence  of  each 

other,  the  one  the  bestower,  the  other  the  recipient  of  a  sacred 

trust,  and  exchange  no  thought  and  give  no  sign  of  the  love 

which  subsists  between  them  ?  "  ^     Pfleiderer  again  says,  "And 

^  Study  of  JReligion,  ii.  p.  48.     Cf.  the  following  sentences  from  his  Hours  of 
Tkowjht: — "Whatever  else  may  be  incladed  in  the  truth  that  '  God  is  a  Spirit,' 


78  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

/  why  should  it  be  less  i^ossible  for  God  to  enter  into  a  loving 
fellowship  with  us,  than  for  men  to  do  so  with  each  other  ? 
I  should  be  inclined  to  think  that  He  is  even  more  capable 
of  doing  so.  For  as  no  man  can  altogether  read  the  soul  of 
another,  so  no  man  can  altogether  live  in  the  soul  of  another ; 
hence  all  our  human  love  is  and  remains  imperfect.  But  if 
we  are  shut  off  from  one  another  by  the  limits  of  individu- 
ality, in  relation  to  God  it  is  not  so ;  to  Him  our  hearts  are 
as  open  as  each  man's  own  heart  is  to  himself;  He  sees 
through  and  through  them,  and  He  desires  to  live  in  them, 
and  to  fill  them  with  His  own  sacred  energy  and  blessedness."  ^ 
True,  why  not  ?  But  if  this  is  admitted,  what  becomes  of 
the  theory  that  the  action  of  God  in  Eevelation  is  necessarily 
bound  up  within  the  limits  of  strict  natural  law  ?  If  the 
gates  of  intercourse  are  thus  open  between  the  human  soul 
and  God,  is  it  either  natural  or  probable  that  God  will  not 
enter  in  at  them,  and  that,  instead  of  leaving  men  simply  to 
feel  after  Him,  if  haply  they  may  find  Him,  He  will  not  at 
some  point  give  them  what  supernatural  light  and  aid  they 
need  to  bring  them  to  the  true  knowledge  of  Himself,  and  fit 
them  for  the  attainment  of  the  highest  ends  of  their  existence  ? 
Certainly,  in  light  of  the  above  admissions,  no  ci  "priori  objec- 
\  tion  can  be  raised  to  the  principle  of  supernatural  Eevelation. 
Outcome  of  The  legitimate  outcome  of  this  theory  is,  that  in  addition 

ins  theory--    ^^  ^encral  Ecvclation  through  reason,  conscience,  and  nature, 

an  expectation         ^  o  ' 

r,  f  J  f  this  at  least  is  implied,  that  He  is  free  to  modify  His  relations  to  all  dependent 

minds  in  exact  conformity  with  their  changes  of  disposition  and  of  need,  and 
let  the  lights  and  shadows  of  His  look  move  as  swiftly  as  the  undulating  wills 
on  which  they  fall."— ii.  p.  29. 

"Passing  by  this  poor  mockery,  I  would  be  understood  to  speak  of  a  direct 
and  natural  communion  of  spirit  with  spirit,  between  ourselves  and  God,  in 
which  He  receives  our  affection  and  gives  a  responsive  breathing  of  His 
inspiration.  Such  communion  appears  to  me  as  certain  of  reality  as  the  daily 
intercourse  between  man  and  man  ;  resting  upon  evidence  as  positive,  and 
declaring  itself  by  results  as  marked.  The  disposition  to  throw  doubt  on  the 
testimony  of  those  who  affirm  that  they  know  this  is  a  groundless  prejudice, 
an  illusion  on  the  negative  side  as  complete  as  the  most  positive  dreams  of 
enthusiasm." — P.  224. 

1  Beligionsphilosophie,  iii.  p.  305  (Eng.  trans.).  See  Note  N. — The  Reason- 
ableness of  Revelation. 


AND  ITS  ALTERNATIVES.  79 

there  is  to  be  expected  some  special  Eevelation ;  and  even 

this,  in  a  certain  way,  is  admitted,  for  it  is  conceded  by  nearly 

all  the  writers  I  have  named,  that  in  the  providential  plan  of 

the  world  a  peculiar  function  was  assigned  to  Israel ;  that,  as  The  vocation 

the  different  nations  of  the  world  have  their  several  provi-  ^t^^'^.^^^~ 

^  Chnst  the 

dential  tasks  (Greece — art,  culture,  philosophy ;  Eome — law,  highest 
government,  etc.),  to  Israel  was  given  the  task  of  developing  R^^^^^^- 
the  idea  of  God  to  its  highest  perfection  in  ethical  Mono- 
theism.^ And,  finally,  it  is  conceded  that  this  self-revelation 
of  God  reaches  its  culmination  in  Jesus  Christ,  whose  Person 
has  world-historical  significance,  as  bearing  in  it  the  principle 
of  the  perfect  relation  between  God  and  man — of  the  absolute 
religious  relation.^  The  line  between  natural  and  super- 
natural Eevelation  is  here,  surely,  becoming  very  thin  ;  and  it 
is  therefore,  perhaps,  not  greatly  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
latest  school  in  German  theology — that  of  Eitschl — should  Return  to 
take  the  short  remaining  step,  and  be  marked  by  precisely -^f'^^^T^^J^''^' 
this  tendency  to  lay  stress  on  the  need  and  reality  of  positive  of  Ritschu 
Eevelation.  The  general  position  of  this  school  may  be  fairly 
summed  up  by  saying  that  God  can  only  be  truly  known  to 
us  by  personal,  positive  Eevelation,  in  which  he  actually  enters 
into  historical  relations  with  mankind ;  and  that  this  Eevela- 
tion has  been  given  in  the  Person  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ. 
Through  this  Eevelation  alone,  but  in  it  perfectly,  we  have 
the  true  knowledge  of  God's  character,  of  His  world-aim  in 
the  establishing  of  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  of  His 
gracious  will  of  forgiveness  and  love.^  Whatever  theory  of 
Eevelation  we  adopt,  Jesus  Christ  must  be  pronounced  to  be 
the  highest  organ  of  it.  On  this  point  all  deep  and  serious 
thinkers  of  our  age  may  be  held  to  be  agreed.  Thus,  then, 
we  are  brought  back  to  Christ,  are  led  to  recognise  in  Him 
the  medium  of  a  true  Eevelation ;  and  it  only  remains  to  ask, 

^  Thus,  e.g.,  Kuenen,  Wellhausen,  Pfleiderer,  Martineaii  {Stat  of  AutlioritVy 
pp.  116-122). 

2  This  is  the  general  position  of  the  higher  class  of  theologians,  of  whatever 
schools. 

2  See  Note  M.— The  Ritschlian  Doctrine  of  Revelation. 


8o  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

What  do  the  facts  of  this  Eevelation,  and  of  Christ's  own  self- 
testimony,  properly  construed  imply  ?  We  have  already  seen 
what  the  verdict  of  history  is  on  this  point,  to  what  alter- 
natives it  shuts  us  up  in  our  treatment  of  this  subject.  We 
shall  afterwards  see  by  examination  of  the  facts  themselves 
how  this  verdict  is  justified. 
Summary^  To  sum  up,  wc  have  sccn  that  two  movements  are  to  be 
Theishc  belief  (Jigcemed  in  history :  the  one  a  downward  movement  leading 

leads  up  to  -i  i    •  p  t  i       •   i        !• 

belief  in  away    from    Christ,   and    resulting    from    the    denial    of,   or 

ChHst,  and  tampering  with.  His  full  Divinity  ;  the  other,  an  upward 
'^itself  through  movement,  retracting  the  stages  of  the  earlier  descent,  and 
^t'  bringing  us  back  to  the  confession  of  Thomas,  "  My  Lord  and 

my  God."  ^  The  former  movement  ends  in  the  gulf  of  Nihilism 
and  Pessimism ;  the  latter  begins  from  the  impossibility  of 
the  mind  abiding  permanently  in  the  denial  of  a  rational 
basis  for  the  universe.  But  here,  as  in  the  downward  move- 
ment, the  logic  of  history  asserts  itself.  Belief  in  a  rational 
basis  of  the  universe  can  only  secure  itself  through  return  to 
Theism ;  a  living  Theism  can  only  secure  itself  through  belief 
in  God  as  self-revealing ;  belief  in  Eevelation  leads  historically 
to  the  recognition  of  Christ  as  the  highest  organ  of  God's 
self-revelation  to  mankind ;  belief  in  Christ  as  Kevealer  can 
only  secure  itself  through  belief  in  His  Divinity.  "  Ye 
believe  in  God,"  said  Jesus ;  "  believe  also  in  Me."^  Belief  in 
God — theistic  belief — presses  on  to  belief  in  Christ,  and  can 
only  secure  itself  through  it.  On  the  other  hand,  belief  in 
Christ  is  the  legitimate  outcome  of  belief  in  God.  The  two 
beliefs,  as  history  demonstrates,  stand  or  fall  together. 

1  John  XX.  28.  ^  John  xiv.  1. 


APPENDIX    TO    LECTUEE    II. 

THE  PESSIMISM  OF  SCEPTICISM. 

All  the  writers  on  Pessimism  dwell  on  the  strangeness  of  Prevalence  of 
the  fact  that  a  century  like  our  own,  so  marked  by  mental 
and  material  progress,  by  vigour  and  enterprise,  should  witness 
a  revival  of  this  gospel  of  despair ;  ^  and  bear  emphatic 
testimony  to  the  breadth  and  depth  of  the  influence  which 
the  pessimistic  systems  are  exercising.  Apart,  however,  from 
the  definite  acceptance  of  Pessimism  as  a  creed,  it  is  instruct- 
iv^e  to  note  the  many  indications  which  literature  ajffords  of 
the  sad  and  hopeless  spirit  which  seems  the  necessary  out- 
come of  the  surrender  of  religious  faith.  A  few  illustrations 
of  this  Pessimism  of  scepticism,  culled  almost  at  random,  will 
perhaps  not  be  out  of  place. 

Voltaire    was    not    happy.     Dr.    Cairns    writes  regarding  Pessimism  of 
him  :  "  How  little  he  himself  was  contented  with   his  own  f;<f/^«^'«  • 

Voltaire. 

results  appears  in  the  gloom  shed  over  his  later  writings. 
It  is  not  in  Candida,  alone,  but  in  others  of  them  that  this 
sadness  comes  to  light.  Thus,  in  his  dialogue,  '  Les  Louanges 
de  Dieu,'  the  doubter  almost  carries  it  over  the  adorer, 
*  Strike  out  a  few  sages,  and  the  crowd  of  human  beings  is 
nothing  but  a  horrible  assemblage  of  unfortunate  criminals, 
and  the  globe  contains  nothing  but  corpses.  I  tremble  to 
have  to  complain  once  more  of  the  Being  of  beings,  in  casting 
an  attentive  eye  over  this  terrible  picture.  I  wish  I  had 
never  been  born.'  .  .  .  Thus  the  last  utterance  of  Voltaire's 
system  is  a  groan."  ^ 

^  See  p.  ^%.  2  Cairns'  Unbelief  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  141. 

'  6 


82  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

Goethe.  A  deep  pessimism  lurked  in  the  background  of  the  genial 

optimism  of  Goethe.  Thus  he  expresses  himself  in  conversa- 
tion with  Eckermann,  "  I  have  ever  been  esteemed  one  of 
fortune's  chiefest  favourites ;  nor  will  I  complain  or  find  fault 
with  the  course  my  life  has  taken.  Yet  truly  there  has 
been  nothing  but  toil  and  care ;  and  I  may  say  that  in  all 
my  seventy-five  years  I  have  never  had  a  month  of  genuine 
comfort.  It  has  been  the  perpetual  rolling  of  a  stone  which 
I  have  always  had  to  raise  anew."  His  views  of  the  future 
of  the  race  were  not  hopeful.  "  Men  will  become  more  clever 
and  more  acute,  but  not  better,  happier,  and  stronger  in 
action,  or  at  least  only  at  epochs.  I  foresee  the  time  when 
God  will  have  no  more  joy  in  them,  but  will  break  up  every- 
thing for  a  renewed  creation."  ^  There  are  numerous  such 
utterances. 

Renan.  Eenan  writes    in    the   preface   to   his   recently   published 

work,  Tlie  Future,  of  Science,  originally  composed  in  the  years 
1848-49 — "To  sum  up;  if,  through  the  constant  labour  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  knowledge  of  facts'  has  consider- 
ably increased,  the  destiny  of  mankind  has  on  the  other  hand 
become  more  obscure  than  ever.  The  serious  thing  is  that 
we  fail  to  perceive  a  means  of  providing  humanity  in  the 
future  with  a  catechism  that  will  be  acceptable  henceforth, 
except  on  the  condition  of  returning  to  a  state  of  credulity. 
Hence  it  is  possible  that  the  ruin  of  idealistic  beliefs  may 
be  fated  to  follow  hard  upon  the  ruin  of  supernatural  beliefs, 
and  that  the  real  abasement  of  the  morality  of  humanity  will 
date  from  the  day  it  has  seen  the  reality  of  things.  .  .  . 
Candidly  speaking,  I  fail  to  see  how,  without  the  ancient 
dreams,  the  foundations  of  a  happy  and  noble  life  are  to  be 
relaid."  ^ 

^  Eckermann's  Conversations  of  Goethe,  pp.  58,  345  (Eng.  trans.).  Cf.  Lichten- 
berger's  German  Thought  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  269  (Eng.  trans.)  ; 
Martensen's  Christian  Ethics,  pp.  172,  3;  and  art.  "Neo-Paganism,"  in 
Quarterly  Review,  April  1891. 

2  UAvenir  de  la  Science,  Preface  (Eng.  trans.).  Elsewhere  Renan  has  said, 
"  We  are  living  on  the  perfume  of  an  empty  vase." 


THE  PESSIMISM  OF  SCEPTICISM.  Z^ 

The  late  Professor  Clifford  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  It  cannot  Professor 
be  doubted  that  the  theistic  belief  is  a  comfort  to  those  who  ^-^^'^ 
hold  it,  and  that  the  loss  of  it  is  a  very  painful  loss.  It 
cannot  be  doubted,  at  least  by  many  of  us  in  this  generation, 
who  either  profess  it  now,  or  have  received  it  in  our  childhood, 
and  have  parted  from  it  since  with  such  searching  trouble  as 
only  cradle- faiths  can  cause.  We  have  seen  the  spring 
sun  shine  out  of  an  empty  heaven  to  light  up  a  soulless 
earth ;  we  have  felt  with  utter  loneliness  that  the  Great 
Companion  is  dead."  ^ 

Professor  Seeley,  in  the  close  of  his  work  on  Natural  Professor 
Religion^  thus  sums  up  :  "  When  the  supernatural  does  not  ^^  ^•^* 
come  in  to  overwhelm  the  natural,  and  turn  life  upside  down, 
when  it  is  admitted  that  religion  deals  in  the  first  instance 
with  the  known  and  natural,  then  we  may  well  begin  to 
doubt  whether  the  known  and  the  natural  can  suffice  for 
human  life.  No  sooner  do  we  try  to  think  so  than  Pessimism 
raises  its  head.  The  more  our  thoughts  widen  and  deepen, 
as  the  universe  grows  upon  us  and  we  become  accustomed  to 
boundless  space  and  time,  the  more  petrifying  is  the  contrast 
of  our  own  insignificance,  the  more  contemptible  become  the 
pettiness,  shortness,  fragility  of  the  individual  life.  A  moral 
paralysis  creeps  over  us.  For  a  while  we  comfort  ourselves 
with  the  notion  of  self-sacrifice ;  we  say,  What  matter  if  I 
pass,  let  me  think  of  others  !  But  the  other  has  become  con- 
temptible no  less  than  the  self ;  all  human  griefs  alike  seem 
little  worth  assuaging,  human  happiness  too  paltry  at  the 
best  to  be  worth  increasing.  .  .  .  The  affections  die  away  in 
a  world  where  everything  great  and  enduring  is  cold ;  they 
die  of  their  own  conscious  feebleness  and  bootlessness. "  ^ 

Of  similar  purport  is  a  passage  often  quoted  from  A  Candid  " Physicus'' 
Examination  of  Theism  by  "  Physicus."       "Forasmuch,"  this '^  ''Candid 

'f  J  J  '  Examination 

writer  says,  "  as  I  am  far  from  being  able  to  agree  with  those  of  Theism:' 
who  affirm  that  the  twilight  doctrine  of  '  the  new  faith '  is 

^  Quoted  in  Harris's  Self- Revelation  of  God,  p.  404. 
2  Natural  Religion,  pp.  2G1,  262. 


84        '  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

a  desirable  substitute  for  the  waning  splendour  of  '  the  old,' 
I  am  not  ashamed  to  confess  that,  with  this  virtual  negation 
of  God,  the  universe  to  me  has  lost  its  soul  of  loveliness ; 
and  although  from  henceforth  the  precept  '  to  work  while  it 
is  day '  will  doubtless  but  gain  an  intensified  force  from  the 
terribly  intensified  meaning  of  the  words,  '  The  night  cometh 
when  no  man  can  work,'  yet,  when  at  times  I  think,  as  think 
at  times  I  must,  of  the  appalling  contrast  between  the 
hallowed  glory  of  that  creed  which  once  was  mine,  and  the 
lonely  mystery  of  existence  as  I  now  find  it,  at  such  times  I 
shall  ever  feel  it  impossible  to  avoid  the  sharpest  pang  of 
which  my  nature  is  susceptible.  For,  whether  it  be  due  to 
my  intelligence  not  being  sufficiently  advanced  to  meet  the 
requirements  of  the  age,  or  whether  it  be  due  to  the  memory  of 
those  sacred  associations  which  to  me,  at  least,  were  the  sweetest 
that  life  has  given,  I  cannot  but  feel  that  for  me,  and  for 
others  who  think  as  I  do,  there  is  a  dreadful  truth  in  those 
words  of  Hamilton, — philosophy  having  become  a  meditation 
not  merely  of  death,  but  of  annihilation,  the  precept  know 
thyself  \id^^  become  transformed  into  the  terrible  oracle  to 
(Edipus,  '  Mayest  thou  ne'er  know  the  truth  of  what  thou 
art.' "  1 
Theodore  Thcodorc  Jouffroy,  the  French  philosopher,  wrote  :  "  Never 

Jotipoy,  Q\iQX\  I  forget  the  December  evening  when  the  veil  which  hid 
my  unbelief  from  mine  own  eyes  was  torn  away.  .  .  .  The 
hours  of  the  night  glided  away,  and  I  perceived  it  not ;  I 
anxiously  followed  my  thought,  which  descended  step  by  step 
to  the  bottom  of  my  consciousness,  and  dissipating  one  after 
another  all  the  illusions  which  till  then  had  hid  them  from 
my  view,  rendered  its  subterfuges  more  and  more  visible  to 
me.  In  vain  I  clung  to  my  last  beliefs,  as  a  shipwrecked 
sailor  to  the  fragments  of  his  ship ;  in  vain,  terrified  by  the 
unknown  waste  in  which  I  was  about  to  float,  I  threw  myself 
back  once  more  upon  my  childhood,  my  family,  my  country, 
all  that  was  dear  and  sacred  to  me ;  the  inflexible  current  of 

1  r.  114. 


THE  PESSIMISM  OF  SCEPTICISM.  85 

my   thought  was    the  stronger ;    parents,   family,   memories, 

beliefs — it  forced  me  to  leave  all.     This  examination  became 

more  obstinate  and  more  severe  as  it  approached  the  end ; 
nor  did  it  stop  till  the  end  was  reached.  I  knew  then  that 
at  the  bottom  of  myself  there  was  nothing  left  standing,  that 
all  I  had  believed  about  myself,  about  God,  and  about  my 
destiny  in  this  life  and  in  that  to  come,  I  now  believed 
no  more.  This  moment  was  frightful ;  and  when,  towards 
morning,  I  threw  myself  exhausted  upon  my  bed,  it  seemed 
to  me  as  if  I  could  feel  my  former  life,  so  cheerful  and  com- 
plete, die  away,  and  before  me  there  opened  np  another  life, 
dark  and  dispeopled,  where  henceforth  I  was  to  live  alone, 
alone  with  my  fatal  thought  which  had  just  exiled  me  thither, 
and  which  I  was  tempted  to  curse."  ^ 

Here  is  Professor  Huxley's  estimate  of  human  progress  : —  Professor 
"  I    know,"   he   says,   "  no    study    which    is    so    unutterably  ^^^^^y- 
saddening  as  that  of  the  evolution  of  humanity,  as  it  is  set 
forth  in  the  annals  of  history.     Out  of  the  darkness  of  pre- 
liistoric  ages  man  emerges  with  the  marks  of  his  lowly  origin 
strong  upon  him.     He  is  a  brute,  only  more  intelligent  than 
the  other  brutes ;  a  blind  prey  to  impulses  which  as  often  as 
not    lead  him  to  destruction ;  a  victim  to  endless  illusions, 
which  make  his  mental  existence  a  terror  and  a  burden,  and 
fill  his  physical  life  with  barren  toil  and  battle.     He  attains 
a  certain  degree  of  physical  comfort,  and  develops  a  more  or 
less  workable  theory  of  life,  in  such  favourable  situations  as 
the  plains  of  Mesopotamia  or  of  Egypt,  and  then,  for  thousands 
and    thousands    of   years,  struggles    with    varying   fortunes, 
attended  by  infinite  wickedness,  bloodshed,  and  misery,   to 
maintain  himself  at  this  point  against  the  greed  and  ambition 
of  his  fellow-men.     He  makes  a  point  of  killing  and  other- 
wise persecuting  all  those  who  first  try  to  get  him  to  move 
on ;  and  when  he  has  moved  on  a  step  foolishly  confers  post- 
mortem deification  on  his  victims.     He  exactly  repeats  the 

^  Lta  Nouveaux  Milanges  Philosophiques,  by  Theodore  Jouffroy,  pp.  112-115 
(cf.  Naville's  "Christ,"  p.  16). 


86 


THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Laveleye  and 
Myers, 


process  with  all  who  want  to  move  a  step  yet  further.  And 
the  best  men  of  the  best  epochs  are  simply  those  who  make 
the  fewest  blunders,  and  commit  the  fewest  sins."  ^  The 
passage  is  in  protest  against  the  Positivist  "  worship  of 
Humanity." 

In  further  illustration  of  the  Pessimism  of  scepticism,  I 
may  refer  to  two  instructive  magazine  articles — one  by 
Emile  de  Laveleye  on  "  The  Future  of  Eeligion,"  in  The  Con- 
tem'porary  Review  for  July  1888;  and  the  other  by  Mr. 
P.  W.  H.  Myers  on  "  The  Disenchantment  of  France,"  in  The 
Nineteenth  Century  for  May  1888.  To  quote  only  a  sentence 
or  two,  M.  Laveleye  remarks : — "  It  seems  as  if  humanity 
could  not  exist  without  religion  as  a  spiritual  atmosphere, 
and  we  see  that  as  this  decreases,  despair  and  Pessimism  take 
hold  of  minds  thus  deprived  of  solace.  Madame  Ackerman 
well  expresses  this  in  some  lines  addressed  to  Faith,  in  which 
she  writes : — 


Madame 
Ackerman, 


*  Eh  bien,  nous  I'expulsons  de  tes  divins  royaumes, 
Dominatrice  ardente,  et  I'instant  est  venu  ; 
Tu  ne  vas  plus  savoir  ou  loger  tes  fantomes, 

Nous  fermons  I'Inconnu ! 
Mais  ton  triomphateur  expiera  ta  defaite, 
L'homme  deja  se  trouble  et,  vainqueur  eperdu, 
II  se  sent  ruin^  par  sa  propre  conquete  ; 
En  te  depossedant  nous  avons  tout  perdu. 
Nous  restons  sans  espoir,  sans  recours,  sans  asile, 
Tandis  qu'  obstinement  le  desir  qu'on  exile 
Revient  errer  autour  du  goufifre  d^fendu.' 


Incurable  sadness  takes  hold  of  the  man  who  has  no  hope 
of  anything  better  than  this  life,  short  as  it  is,  and  over- 
whelmed with  trials  of  all  kinds,  where  iniquity  triumphs  if 

^  "Agnosticism,"  by  Professor  Huxley,  in  Nineteenth  Century,  Feb.  1889, 
pp.  191,  192.  Mr.Mallock,  in  his  Is  Life  Worth  Living  ?  (pp.  128,  171,  172), 
quotes  other  striking  sentences  of  Professor  Huxley's.  "The  lover  of  moral 
beauty,"  he  says,  *'  struggling  through  a  world  of  sorrow  and  sin,  is  surely  as 
much  the  stronger  for  believing  that  sooner  or  later  a  vision  of  perfect  peace 
and  goodness  will  burst  upon  him,  as  the  toiler  up  a  mountain  for  the  belief 
that  beyond  crag  and  snow  lie  home  and  rest."  And  he  adds  that,  could  a 
faith  like  this  be  placed  on  a  iirm  basis,  mankind  would  cling  to  it  as 
"  tenaciously  as  ever  drowning  sailor  did  to  a  hencoop." 


THE  PESSIMISM  OF  SCEPTICISM,  87 

it  have  but  force  on  its  side,  and  where  men  risk  their  lives 
in  disputes  with  each  other  for  a  place  where  there  is  too 
little  space  for  all,  and  the  means  of  subsistence  are  w^hoUy 
insufficient.  Some  German  colonies  have  been  founded  in 
America,  in  which  all  sorts  of  Divine  worship  are  proscribed ; 
those  who  have  visited  them  describe  the  colonists,  the  women 
especially,  as  appearing  exceedingly  sad.  Life  with  no  hope 
in  the  future  loses  its  savour."  ^ 

Mr.  Myers'  article  on  the  progress  of    disillusionment  in  DisUiusion- 
France,   "  to    use    the   phrase    of    commonest    recurrence    in  '^^^^  ^^ 

'  ^  France. 

modern  French  literature  and  speech,"  is  one  fitted  to  open 

many  eyes  as  to  the  inevitable  drift  of  unbelief  to  Pessimism. 

In  1788  France  possessed  illusions  and  nothing  else — "the 

reign   of  reason,  the    return   to    nature,  the  social  contract, 

liberty,    equality,  fraternity, —  the  whole    air    of    that   wild 

time  buzzed  with  new-hatched  chimeras";  in  1888  France 

possesses   everything  except  illusions ;  and  the  end  is  "  the 

vague    but   general    sense    of   malaise    or    decadence,   which 

permeates  so  much  of  modern  French  literature  and  life,"  and 

of    which  abundant  illustrations    are  given.     Not  the  least 

striking  of  these  is  a  passage  from  Emile  Lit t re,  the  once  Emile  Littri. 

enthusiastic  Comtist,  who  likens  his  own  final  mood  to  that 

of  the  Trojan  women  who  ;pontum  adspeciahant  flentes  !     "  Fit 

epigraph,"  says  Mr.  Myers,  "  for  a  race  who  have  fallen  from 

hope,    on    whose    ears    the    waves'    world-old    message    still 

murmurs  without  a  meaning ;  while  the  familiar  landmarks 

fall  back  into  shadow,  and  there  is  nothing  but  the  sea."  ^ 

These  illustrations,  which  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  Sully. 
sufficiently  confirm  the  words  of  Mr.  Sully  in  his  work  on 
Pessimism  ^ — "  I  am  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  our  scheme 
of  individual  happiness,  even  when  taken  as  including  the 
good  of  others  now  living  and  to  live  is  no  perfect  substitute 
for    the    idea    of    eternal    happiness    presented    in    religion. 

1  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  xiv.  p.  6.  A  large  number  of  illustrations  from 
French  poetry  may  be  seen  in  Caro's  ProhUmes  de  Morale  Sociale,  pp.  351-380. 
Cf.  also  the  article  next  referred  to  on  **  The  Disenchantment  of  France." 

2  Nineteenth  Century,  May  1888,  p.  676.  ^  Pessimism,  p.  317. 


88  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

Nobody,  I  imagine,  would  seriously  contend  that  the  aims  of 
our  limited  earthly  existence,  even  when  our  imagination 
embraces  generations  to  follow  us,  are  of  so  inspiring  a 
character  as  the  objects  presented  by  religion.  .  .  .  Into  the 
reality  of  these  religious  beliefs  I  do  not  here  enter.  I  would 
only  say  that  if  men  are  to  abandon  all  hope  of  a  future  life, 
the  loss  in  point  of  cheering  and  sustaining  influence,  will  be 
a  vast  one,  and  one  not  to  be  made  good,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
by  any  new  idea  of  services  to  collective  humanity." 


LECTURE  III, 


JTfje  ^rfjefetic  Postulate  of  tlje  etijristtan  Uteto. 


"  For  the  invisible  things  of  Him  since  the  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  perceived  through  the  things  that  are  made,  even  His 
everlasting  power  and  Divinity,  that  they  may  be  without  excuse."— Paul. 

"  Let  us  begin,  then,  by  asking  whether  all  this  which  they  call  the 
universe  is  left  to  the  guidance  of  an  irrational  and  random  chance,  or,  on 
the  contrary,  as  our  fathers  declared,  is  ordered  and  governed  by  a  mar- 
vellous intelligence  and  wisdom." — Plato. 

"It  is  easy  for  the  fool,  especially  the  learned  and  scientific  fool,  to 
prove  that  there  is  no  God,  but  like  the  murmuring  sea,  which  heeds  not 
the  scream  of  wandering  birds,  the  soul  of  humanity  murmurs  for  God, 
and  confutes  the  erudite  folly  of  the  fool  by  disregarding  it."— J.  Service, 

"It  is  in  the  moments  when  we  are  best  that  we  believe  in  God."— 
Renan. 

"  Atheism  is  the  most  irrational  form  of  theology." — Comte. 

"  I  have  noticed,  during  years  of  self-observation,  that  it  is  not  in  hours 
of  clearness  and  vigour  that  this  doctrine  (Material  Atheism)  commends 
itself  to  my  mind  ;  that  in  the  presence  of  stronger  and  healthier 
thought  it  ever  dissolves  and  disappears,  as  affording  no  solution  of  the 
mystery  in  which  we  dwell,  and  of  which  we  form  a  part." — Tyndall. 


LECTUEE    III. 

THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHEISTIAN  VIEW. 

In  entering  on  the  task  of  unfolding  the  Christian  view  of  Christianity 
the  world  under  its  positive  aspects,  and  of  considering  its  ^  *^^^^^^ 
relations   to  modern  thought,  I  begin  where  religion  itself 
begins,  with  the  existence  of  God.     Christianity  is  a  theistic 
system;    this   is  its  first    postulate  —  the    personal,   ethical, 
self-revealing  God. 

Volkmar  has  remarked  that  of  monotheistic  religions  there  Only  three 
are  only  three  in  the  world— the  Israelitish,  the  Christian,  '«^/f^f^'^"^^'^ 

religions. 

and  the  Mohammedan ;  and  the  last-named  is  derived  from 
the  other  two.  "So,"  he  adds,  "is  the  'Israel  of  God'  the 
one  truly  religious,  the  religiously-select,  people  of  antiquity ; 
and  ancient  Israel  remains  for  each  worshipper  of  the  one, 
therefore  of  the  true  God,  who  alone  is  worthy  of  the  name, 
the  classical  people.  .  .  .  Christianity  is  the  blossom  and 
fruit  of  the  true  worship  of  God  in  Israel,  which  has  become 
such  for  all  mankind."  ^  This  limitation  of  Monotheism  in 
religion  to  the  peoples  who  have  benefited  by  the  Biblical 
teaching  on  this  subject  suggests  its  origin  from  a  higher 
than  human  source  ;  and  refutes  the  contention  of  those 
who  would  persuade  us  that  the  monotheistic  idea  is  the 
result  of  a  long  process  of  development  through  which  the 
race  necessarily  passes,  beginning  with  Eetishism,  or  perhaps 
Ghost  worship,  mounting  to  Polytheism,  and  ultimately  sub- 
suming the  multitude  of  Divine  powers  under  one  all-con- 
trolling will.     It  will  be  time  enough  to  accept  this  theory 

^  i/esws  Nazarenus,  p.  5. 


92  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

when,  outside  the  line  of  the  Biblical  development,  a  single 

nation  can  be  pointed  to  which  has  gone  through  these  stages, 

and  reached  this  goal.^ 

Theistn  in-  I  should  like  further  at  the  outset  to  direct  attention  to 

vo  ves  a  super-  ^^  fact  that,  in  affirming  the  existence  of  God  as  Theism 

natural  view  ^ 

of  the  world,  apprehends  Him,  we  have  already  taken  a  great  step  into  the 
supernatural,  a  step  which  should  make  many  others  easy. 
Many  speak  glibly  of  the  denial  of  the  supernatural,  who 
never  realise  how  much  of  the  supernatural  they  have  already 
admitted  in  affirming  the  existence  of  a  personal,  wise,  holy, 
and  beneficent  Author  of  the  universe.  They  may  deny 
supernatural  actions  in  the  sense  of  miracles,  but  they  have 
affirmed  supernatural  Being  on  a  scale  and  in  a  degree  which 
casts  supernatural  action  quite  into  the  shade.  If  God  is  a 
reality,  the  whole  universe  rests  on  a  supernatural  basis.  A 
supernatural  presence  pervades  it ;  a  supernatural  power 
sustains  it;  a  supernatural  will  operates  in  its  forces;  a 
supernatural  wisdom  appoints  its  ends.  The  whole  visible 
order  of  things  rests  on  another, — an  unseen,  spiritual,  super- 
natural order, — and  is  the  symbol,  the  manifestation,  the 
Eevelation  of  it.  It  is  therefore  only  to  be  expected  that  the 
feeling  should  grow  increasingly  in  the  minds  of  thoughtful 
men,  that  if  this  supernatural  basis  of  the  universe  is  to  be 
acknowledged,  a  great  deal  more  must  be  admitted  besides. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  opposition  to  the  supernatural  is  to 
be  carried  out  to  its  logical  issue,  it  must  not  stop  with  the 
denial  of  miracle,  but  must  extend  to  the  whole  theistic  con- 
ception. This  is  the  secret  of  the  intimate  connection  which 
I  showed  in  last  Lecture  to  exist  between  the  idea  of  God  and 
the  idea  of  Eevelation.  A  genuine  Theism  can  never  long 
remain  a  bare  Theism.  At  the  height  to  which  Christianity  has 
raised  our  thoughts  of  God,  it  is  becoming  constantly  more 
difiicult  for  minds  that  reflect  seriously  to  believe  in  a  God 
who  does  not  manifest  himself  in  word  and  deed.  This  is 
well  brought  out  in  a  memorable  conversation  which  Mr. 
1  See  Note  A.— Primitive  Fetishism  and  Ghost  "Worship. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  93 

Froude  had  with  Mr.  Carlyle  in  the  last  days  of  his  life.  "  I  Froude  and 
once  said  to  him,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  not  long  before  his  ^^-^  ^'* 
death,  that  I  could  only  believe  in  a  God  which  did  some- 
thing. With  a  cry  of  pain,  which  I  shall  never  forget,  he 
said,  'He  does  nothing.'"  ^  This  simply  means  that  if  we  are 
to  retain  the  idea  of  a  living  God  we  must  be  in  earnest  with 
it.  We  must  believe  in  a  God  who  expresses  Himself  in 
living  deeds  in  the  history  of  mankind,  who  has  a  word  and 
message  for  mankind,  who,  having  the  power  and  the  will  to 
bless  mankind,  does  it.  Theism,  as  I  contended  before,  needs 
Eevelation  to  complete  it. 

Here,  accordingly,  it  is,  that  the  Christian  view  of  God  has  The  strength 
its  strength  against   any  conception   of   God  based  on  li^^^^iQ;^^  of  Christian 

J.  t%C%S7tt  tS  ZtS 

grounds  of  natural  theology.     It  binds  together,  in  the  closest  connection 

reciprocal  relations,  the  two  ideas   of  God   and   Eevelation.  "^f^^^  Revela- 
tion. 
The   Christian   doctrine,  while   including  all   that  the  word 

Theism  ordinarily  covers,  is  much  more  than  a  doctrine  of 
simple  Theism.  God,  in  the  Christian  view,  is  a  Being  who 
enters  into  the  history  of  the  world  in  the  most  living  way. 
He  is  not  only  actively  present  in  the  material  universe, — 
ordering,  guiding,  controlling  it, — but  He  enters  also  in  the 
most  direct  way  into  the  course  of  human  history,  working 
in  it  in  His  general  and  special  providence,  and  by  a  gradual 
and  progressive  Eevelation,  which  is,  at  the  same  time, 
practical  discipline  and  education,  giving  to  man  that 
knowledge  of  Himself  by  which  he  is  enabled  to  attain 
the  highest  ends  of  his  own  existence,  and  to  co-operate 
freely  in  the  carrying  out  of  Divine  ends ;  above  all,  dis- 
covering Himself  as  the  God  of  Eedemption,  who,  full  of  long- 
suffering  and  mercy,  executes  in  loving  deeds,  and  at  infinite 
sacrifice.  His  gracious  purpose  for  the  salvation  of  mankind. 
The  Christian  view  of  God  is  thus  bound  up  with  all 
the  remaining  elements  of  the  Christian  system — with  the 
idea  of  Eevelation  in  Christ,  with  a  kingdom  of  God  to 
be  realised    through   Christ,   with   Eedemption  from  sin   in 

^  See  the  whole  passage  in  Fronde's  Carlyle^  ii.  pp.  258-263. 


94 


THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 


Christ^s  teach- 
ing embraces 
the  affirma- 
tions of  a  com 
plete  Theism. 


The  absolute- 
ness of  God. 


The  natural 
attributes. 


Christ, — and  it  is  inseparable  from  them.  It  is  through 
these  elements — not  in  its  abstract  character  as  Theism — 
that  it  takes  the  hold  it  does  on  the  living  convictions  of 
men,  and  is  felt  by  them  to  be  something  real.  If  I  under- 
take to  defend  Theism,  it  is  not  Theism  in  dissociation  from 
Eevelation,  but  Theism  as  completed  in  the  entire  Christian 
view. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  that  I  should  prove  that  Christ's 
teaching  about  God  embraces  all  the  affirmations  commonly 
understood  to  be  implied  in  a  complete  Theism.  Christ's 
doctrine  of  the  Father  is,  indeed,  entirely  unmetaphysical. 
We  meet  with  no  terms  such  as  absolute,  infinite,  uncon- 
ditioned, first  cause,  etc.,  with  which  the  student  of  philo- 
sophy is  familiar.  Yet  all  that  these  terms  imply  is 
undeniably  recognised  by  Jesus  in  His  teaching  about  God. 
He  takes  up  into  His  teaching — as  the  apostles  likewise  do — 
all  the  natural  truth  about  God ;  He  takes  up  all  the  truth 
about  God's  being,  character,  perfections,  and  relations  to  the 
world  and  man,  already  given  in  the  Old  Testament.  God. 
with  Jesus,  is  unquestionably  the  sole  and  supreme  source  of 
existence ;  He  by  whom  all  things  were  created,  and  on 
whom  all  things  depend ;  the  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 
whose  power  and  rule  embrace  the  smallest  as  well  as  the 
greatest  events  of  life ;  the  Eternal  One,  who  sees  the  end 
from  the  beginning,  and  whose  vast  counsels  hold  in  their 
grasp  the  issues  of  all  things.  The  attributes  of  God  are 
similarly  dealt  with.  They  are  never  made  by  Christ  the 
subject  of  formal  discourse,  are  never  treated  of  for  their  own 
sakes,  or  in  their  metaphysical  relations.  They  come  into 
view  solely  in  their  religious  relations.  Yet  no  one  will 
dispute  that  all  the  attributes  involved  in  the  highest  theistic 
conception — eternity,  omnipotence,  omnipresence,  omniscience, 
and  the  like — are  implied  in  His  teaching.  God,  in  Christ's 
view,  is  the  all-wise,  all-present,  all-powerful  Being,  at 
once  infinitely  exalted  above  the  world,  yet  active  in  every 
part  of  it,  from  whose  eyes,  seeing  in  secret,  nothing  can  be 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  95 

hid,  laying  His  plans  in  eternity,  and  unerringly  carrying 
them  out.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  Christ's  teaching,  how- 
ever, that  the  natural  attributes  are  always  viewed  in  sub- 
ordination to  the  moral.  In  respect  of  these,  Christ's  view  The  moral 
of  God  resembles  that  of  the  Old  Testament  in  its  union  of  «^^^^'^^^^^^- 
the  two  ideas  of  God's  unapproachable  majesty  and  elevation 
above  the  world  as  the  infinitely  Holy  One ;  and  of  His  con- 
descending grace  and  continued  action  in  history  for  the 
salvation  and  good  of  men.  The  two  poles  in  the  ethical 
perfection  of  God's  character  are  with  Him,  as  with  the 
prophets  of  the  old  covenant,  righteousness  and  love — the 
former  embracing  His  truth,  faithfulness,  and  justice ;  the 
latter  His  beneficence,  compassion,  long-suffering,  and  mercy. 
Eitschl,  indeed,  in  his  treatment  of  this  subject,  will  recognise 
no  attribute  but  love,  and  makes  all  the  others,  even  the  so- 
called  physical  attributes,  but  aspects  of  love.  Eighteous- 
ness,  e.g.,  is  but  the  self -consistency  of  God  in  carrying  out  His 
purposes  of  love,  and  connotes  nothing  judicial.^  Eighteous- 
ness,  however,  has  its  relatively  independent  place  as  an 
attribute  of  God  in  both  Old  and  New  Testaments,  and 
cannot  thus  be  set  aside.  It  has  reference  to  indefeasible 
distinctions  of  right  and  wrong — to  moral  norms,  which  even 
love  must  respect.  Out  of  righteousness  and  love  in  the  char- 
acter of  God,  again,  issues  wrath — another  idea  which  modern 
thought  tries  to  weaken,  but  which  unquestionably  holds  an 
important  place  in  the  view  of  God  given  us  by  Christ.  By 
wrath  is  meant  the  intense  moral  displeasure  with  which  God 
regards  sin — His  holy  abhorrence  of  it — and  the  punitive 
energy  of  His  nature  which  He  puts  forth  against  it.  So 
regarded,  it  is  not  opposed  to  love,  but  on  the  contrary 
derives  its  chief  intensity  from  the  presence  of  love,  and  is  a 
necessary  element  in  the  character  of  an  ethically  perfect 
Being.^     While,  however,  Christ's  teaching  about  the  character 

1  Cf.  his  Bedit.  unci  Vers.  ii.  pp.  102-112. 

2  Cf.  on  the  Divine  Wrath,  Principal  Simon,  The  Redemption  of  Men,  ch.  v. 
Dale  on  The  Atonement,  Lecture  VIII.  ;  Lux  Mundi,  pp.  285-289. 


96  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

of  God  is  grounded  on  that  of  the  Old  Testament,  yet  in  the 

purity  and  perfection  with  which  He  apprehends  this  ethical 

perfection  of  God, — above  all,  in  the  new  light  in  which  He 

places    it    by   His   transforming    conception    of    the    Divine 

Fatherhood,  we  feel  that  w^e  are  carried  far  beyond  the  stage 

of  the  Old  Testament.     God,  as  ethical  Personality,  is  viewed 

by  Christ — First,  as  in  Himself  the  absolutely  good  One — 

"  There  is  none  good  but  one,  that  is,  God ; "  ^  second,  as  the 

perfect  Archetype  of  goodness  for  man's  imitation — "  Be  ye 

therefore  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is 

•perfect; "2    third,  as   the    moral  Will   binding  the  universe 

together,  and   prescribing  the  law  of   conduct  — "  Thy  will 

be  done  in  earth,  as  it  is  in  heaven " ;  ^    but,  fourth,  pre- 

The  Divine     eminently    as    the  Father.      It   is  in   the    name  Father,   as 

Fatherhood,      gxpressive  of  a  special  loving  and  gracious  relation  to  the 

individual   members  of   His  kingdom,  that  Christ's  doctrine 

of  God  specially  sums  itself  up.     The  Old  Testament  knew 

God  as  the  Father  of  the  nation  ;  Christ  knew  Him  as  the 

Father  of  the  individual  soul,  begotten  by  Him  to  a  new  life, 

and  standing  to  Him  in  a  new  moral  and  spiritual  relation, 

as  a  member  of  the  kingdom  of  His  Son. 

This  first  pos-       This,   then,   without   further  delineation  in  detail,  is  the 

tidateoft  e     g^g|.  pog^^i^te  of  Christianity — a  God  living,  personal,  ethical, 

—how  related  sclf-rcvealing,  infinite.      We  have  now  to  ask  —  How  does 

to  modern       ^|^-g  postulate  of  the  Christian  view  stand  related  to  modern 

thought ?  ^ 

thought,  and  to  the  general  religious  consciousness  of  mankind  ? 

How  far  is  it  corroborated  or  negated  by  modern  thought  ? 

What  is  the  nature  of  the  corroboration,  and  what  the  worth 

of  the  negation  ?     I  shall  consider  the  negation  first. 

/.  The  nega-  I.  Dogmatic  Atheism  has  not  so  many  advocates — at  least 

'rH-r  I  in  this  country — as  at  some  former  times;  but,  instead,  we 

view.  have  a  wide  prevalence  of  that  new  form  of  negation  which 

The  Agnostic  is  Called  Agnosticism.     I  have  already  referred  to  this  as  one 

^wIvITtT-  °^  ^^^  alternlatives  to  which  the  mind  is  driven  in  its  denial 

garded?  ^  Mark  x.  18.  '^  Matt.  v.  48.  '^  Matt.  vi.  10. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  97 

of  the  supernatural  view  of  Christ's  Person ;  but  it  is  now 
necessary  to  consider  it  on  its  own  merits.  The  thought  may 
occur  that  this  widespread  phase  of  present  day  unbelief  is 
not  properly  described  as  "negation,"  seeing  that  all  it 
affirms  is,  that  it  "  does  not  know."  It  does  not  say  "  There 
is  no  God,"  but  only  that  it  does  not  know  that  there  is  one. 
Its  ground  is  that  of  ignorance,  lack  of  evidence,  suspense  of 
judgment — not  positive  denial.  This  plea,  however,  is  on 
various  grounds  inadmissible.  It  is  certainly  not  the  case 
that  thorough-going,  reasoned-out  Agnosticism,  as  we  have  it, 
for  example,  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Spencer,  is  simply  the 
modest  assertion  that  it  does  not  know  whether  there  is  a 
God  or  not.  It  is  the  dogmatic  affirmation,  based  on  an 
examination  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  human  intelligence, 
that  God — or  in  Mr.  Spencer's  phrase,  the  Power  which 
manifests  itself  in  consciousness  and  in  the  outward  universe 
— is  unknowable.^  But  in  all  its  forms,  even  the  mildest, 
Agnosticism  is  entitled  to  be  regarded  as  a  negation  of  the 
Christian  viev/,  for  two  reasons.  First,  in  affirming  that  God  (i)  it  negates 
is  not,  or  cannot  be,  known,  it  directly  neojates,  not  only  the  ^  f  Cirtstian 

'I         CI         }  J  view  of  God  as 

truths  of  God's  natural  Eevelation,  which  Christianity  pre-  self-revealing. 
supposes,  but  the  specific  Christian  assertion  that  God  can  be 
and  is  known  through  the  series  of  His  historical  Eevelations, 
and  supremely  through  His  Son  Jesus  Christ.     "  The  only 
begotten  Son,  which  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father,  He  hath 

1  Prof.  Huxley,  the  inventor  of  the  term,  has  given  us  Ida  explanation  of  it. 
*'  Agnosticism,"  he  says,  "  in  fact,  is  not  a  creed  but  a  method,  the  essence  of 
which  lies  in  the  rigorous  application  of  a  single  principle.  .  .  .  Positively,  the 
principle  may  be  thus  expressed  :  in  matters  of  the  intellect,  follow  your  reason 
as  far  as  it  will  take  you,  without  regard  to  any  other  consideration.  And, 
negatively,  in  matters  of  the  intellect,  do  not  pretend  that  conclusions  are 
certain  which  are  not  demonstrated  or  demonstrable.  That  I  take  to  be  the 
Agnostic  faith,  which,  if  a  man  keep  whole  and  undefiled,  he  shall  not  be 
ashamed  to  look  the  universe  in  the  face,  whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store 
for  him." — "Agnosticism,"  in  Nineteenth  Century^  Feb.  1889.  This,  however, 
is  evidently  not  a  "  faith,"  but,  as  he  says,  a  "method,"  which  in  its  application 
may  yield  positive  or  negative  results,  as  the  case  may  be.  Behind  it,  at  the 
same  time,  lies,  in  his  case,  the  conviction  that  real  answers  to  the  greater 
questions  of  religion  are  '  *  not  merely  actually  impossible,  but  theoretically 
inconceivable."— 76icZ.  p.  182. 

7 


,       98  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

(2)  The  declared  Him."  ^     And,  second,  if  God  exists,  it  is  impossible 

affirmation  of  .^  ^^^^  nature  of  thiiigs  that  there  should  not  be  evidence  of 

the  absence  oj  ^ 

evidence  for     His  existence,  and  therefore  the  denial  of  such  evidence  is 
God's  existence  j^^^tually  tantamount  to  the  denial  of  His  existence.     Why  do 

tantamount  to  "^ 

denial  of  His  I  say  this  ?  It  is  becausc  the  truth  about  God  differs  from 
existence.  every  other  truth  in  just  this  respect,  that  if  it  is  truth 
it  must  be  capable  of  a  certain  measure  of  rational  demon- 
stration. For  God  is  not  simply  one  Being  among  others. 
He  is  the  necessary  Being.  He  is  the  Being  whose 
existence  is  necessarily  involved  in  the  existence  of  every 
other  being.  The  whole  universe,  ourselves  as  part  of  it, 
stands  in  a  relation  of  necessary  dependence  upon  Him. 
God,  therefore,  is  unlike  every  other  being  our  thought  can 
take  account  of.  Other  beings  may  exist,  and  we  may  have 
no  evidence  of  their  existence.  But  it  is  rationally  incon- 
ceivable that  such  an  all-comprehending  Eeality  as  we  call 
God  should  exist,  and  that  through  Him  the  whole  material 
and  spiritual  universe  should  come  into  being,  and  yet  no 
trace  be  found  connecting  this  universe  with  its  Author — so 
vast  an  effect  with  its  cause.  If  even  man,  for  however  short 
a  space  of  time,  sets  foot  on  an  uninhabited  island,  we  expect, 
if  we  visit  his  retreat,  to  find  some  traces  of  his  occupation. 
How  much  more,  if  this  universe  owes  its  existence  to  infinite 
wisdom  and  power,  if  God  is  unceasingly  present  and  active 
in  every  part  of  it,  must  we  expect  to  find  evidence  of  the 
fact  ?  Therefore,  I  say  that  denial  of  all  evidence  for  God's 
existence  is  equivalent  to  the  affirmation  that  there  is  no 
God.  If  God  is,  thought  must  be  able,  nay  is  compelled,  to 
take  account  of  His  existence.  It  must  explore  the  rela- 
tions in  which  He  stands  to  us  and  to  the  world.  An 
obligation  rests  on  it  to  do  so.  To  think  of  God  is  a  duty 
of  love,  but  it  is  also  a  task  of  science. 
Mr.  Spencer's  Mr.  Speuccr  is  SO  far  in  agreement  with  the  views  just 
'^an  ultimate  ^^P^^^sed  that  he  maintains  that  our  thought  is  compelled  to 
reality  or        posit  the  cxistcnce  of  an  absolute  Being  as  the  ground  and 

tower. 

^  1  John  i.  18. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  99 

cause  of  the  universe,  though  of  the  nature  of  this  ultimate 
reality  he  holds  that  we  can  form  no  conception.  The 
reason  given  is,  that  our  minds,  being  finite  and  con- 
ditioned in  their  thinking,  cannot  form  a  conception  of  an 
existence  which  lies  outside  these  conditions.^  The  question, 
however,  is  pertinent — If  the  mind  is  thus  hemmed  up 
within  the  limits  of  its  finitude,  how  does  it  get  to  know 
even  that  an  Absolute  exists  ?  Or  if  we  can  so  far  transcend 
the  limits  of  our  thought  as  to  know  that  the  Absolute 
exists — which  is  a  disproof  of  the  position  that  thought  is 
restricted  wholly  to  the  finite — why  may  we  not  also  have 
some  knowledge  of  its  nature  ?  It  is  not  difficult  to  show 
that,  in  his  endeavours  to  extricate  himself  from  these 
difficulties,  Mr.  Spencer  involves  himself  in  a  mass  of  self-  The  con- 
contradictions.  He  tells  us,  e.g.,  in  every  variety  of  phrase,  his  view. 
that  we  cannot  know  the  Absolute,  but  almost  in  the  same 
breath  he  tells  us  that  we  have  an  idea  of  the  Absolute  which 
our  minds  are  compelled  to  form,^ — that  it  is  a  positive,  and 
not,  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  and  Mr.  Mansel  held,  a  merely 
negative  conception,^ — nay,  that  we  have  not  only  a  conception, 
but  a  direct  and  immediate  consciousness  of  this  Absolute, 
blending  itself  with  all  our  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  recog- 
nisable by  us  as  such.*  Again,  if  we  ask,  What  is  meant  by 
the  Absolute  ?  it  is  defined  as  that  which  exists  out  of  all 
relations,  and  for  this  reason  the  possibility  of  a  knowledge  of 

1  Cf.  First  Principles,  pp.  74,  75,  110. 

2  First  Principles,  p.  88. 

^  First  Principles,  pp.  87-92.  *' Still  more  manifest,"  he  says,  "will  tliis 
truth  become  when  it  is  observed  that  our  conception  of  the  Relative  itself  dis- 
appears, if  our  conception  of  the  Absolute  is  a  pure  negation.  .  .  .  What,  then, 
becomes  of  the  assertion  that  '  the  Absolute  is  conceived  merely  by  a  negation 
of  conceivability,'  or  as  '  the  mere  absence  of  the  conditions  under  which  con- 
sciousness is  possible  ? '  If  the  Non-relative  or  Absolute  is  present  in  thought 
only  as  a  mere  negation,  then  the  relation  between  it  and  the  Relative  becomes 
unthinkable,  because  one  of  the  terms  of  the  relation  is  absent  from  conscious- 
ness. And  if  this  relation  is  unthinkable,  then  is  the  Relative  itself  unthink- 
able, for  want  of  its  antithesis  ;  whence  results  the  disappearance  of  all  thought 
whatever."— P.  91. 

4  Fi7^st  Principles,  pp.  89,  91,  94-97.  Cf.  Nineteenth  Century,  July  1884, 
p.  24. 


100 


THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 


The  ''In- 
scrutable 
Power  "  of 
Mr.  Spencer 
not,  after  ally 
unknowable. 


it  is  denied.^  But  if  we  inquire  further  what  ground  we  have 
for  affirming  the  existence  of  such  an  Absolute,  existing  out 
of  all  relations,  we  find  that  the  only  ground  alleged  is  the 
knowledge  we  have  of  it  as  standing  in  relations.^  For  this, 
which  Mr.  Spencer  names  the  Absolute,  is  simply  the  Infinite 
Power  which  he  elsewhere  tells  us  manifests  itself  in  all  that 
is — in  nature  and  in  consciousness — and  is  a  constituent 
element  in  every  idea  we  can  form.  The  Absolute,  therefore, 
stands  in  relation  to  both  matter  and  mind — has,  so  far  as 
we  can  see,  its  very  nature  in  that  relation.  It  is  not,  it 
turns  out,  a  Being  which  exists  out  of  all  relations,  but 
rather,  like  the  Christian  God,  a  self  -  revealing  Power, 
manifesting  itself,  if  not  directly  yet  indirectly,  in  its  work- 
ings in  the  worlds  of  matter  and  of  mind.  How  strange  to 
speak  of  a  Power  thus  continually  manifesting  itself  in  in- 
numerable ways,  the  consciousness  of  which,  on  Mr.  Spencer's 
own  showing,^  constantly  wells  up  within  us,  as  absolutely 
unknown  or  unknowable  ! 

But  after  all,  as  we  by  and  by  discover,  this  Inscrutable 
Power  of  Mr.  Spencer's  is  not  absolutely  unknowable.  It 
soon  becomes  apparent  that  there  are  quite  a  number  of 
affirmations  we  are  able  to  make  regarding  it,  some  of  them 
almost  of  a  theistic  character.  They  are  made,  I  admit, 
generally  under  a  kind  of  protest,*  yet  it  is  difficult  to  see 
why,  if  they  are  not  seriously  meant — if  they  do  not  convey 
some  modicum  of  knowledge — they  should  be  made  at  all. 
According  to  Mr.  Spencer,  this  ultimate  reality  is  a  Power  :  it 
is  a  Force,  the  nearest  analogue  to  which  is  our  own  will  ;^  it 


1  First  Principles,  pp.  78,  79,  81.  This  is  qualified  in  other  places  by  such 
phrases  as  **  possible  existence  out  of  all  relation  "  (Mausel),  and  "of  which  no 
necessary  relation  can  be  predicated,"  pp.  39,  81.  But  this  qualification  seems 
unnecessary,  for  it  is  only  as  out  of  relation  that  by  definition  it  is  the 
Absolute. 

^  Even  in  the  passage  above  quoted,  we  have  the  contradictio  in  adjecto  of 
"  the  relation  between  it  {i.e.  the  Non-Relative)  and  the  Relative." — P.  91. 

^  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  p.  839. 

^  E.g.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  p.  843. 

^  First  Principles,  p.  189  ;  cf.  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  p.  843. 


OF  THE  CHRISriA'JS  VTEW,  :  ^  >    •.  ^  ^  -loi 

is  infinite,  it  is  eternal,  it  is  omnipresent ;  ^  it  is  an  infinite 
and  eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed  ;  ^  it  is  the 
Cause  of  the  universe,  standing  to  it  in  a  relation  similar  to 
that  of  the  creative  power  of  the  Christian  conception.^ 
Numerous  other  statements  might  be  quoted  all  more  or  less 
implying  knowledge, — as,  e.g.,  that  "the  Power  manifested 
throughout  the  Universe  distinguished  as  material,  is  the  same 
Power  which  in  ourselves  wells  up  under  the  form  of  conscious- 
ness " ;  while  the  "  necessity  we  are  under  to  think  of  the 
external  energy  in  terms  of  the  internal  energy  gives  rather 
a  spiritualistic  than  a  materialistic  aspect  to  the  Universe."  * 
This,  I  take  leave  to  say,  so  far  from  being  Agnosticism, 
would  more  correctly  be  described  as  a  qualified  Gnosticism.^ 
Mr.  Spencer's  so-called  Agnosticism  is  not  an  agnostic  system 
at    all,   but    a    system   of    non  -  material,  or    semi  -  spiritual 

^  First  Principles,  p.  99. 

^  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  p.  843.  "  But  one  truth,"  he  says,  "  must  grow- 
ever  clearer — the  truth  that  there  is  an  Inscrutable  Existence  everywhere  mani- 
fested, to  which  he  can  neither  find,  nor  conceive  either  beginning  or  end. 
Amid  the  mysteries  which  become  the  more  mysterious  the  more  they  are 
thought  about,  there  will  remain  the  one  absolute  certainty  that  he  is  ever  in 
presence  of  one  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy,  from  which  all  things  proceed." 

^  *'  I  held  at  the  outset,  and  continue  to  hold,  that  this  Inscrutable  Existence 
which  science,  in  the  last  resort,  is  compelled  to  recognise  as  unreached  by  its 
deepest  analysis  of  matter,  motion,  thought,  and  feeling,  stands  towards  our 
general  conception  of  things  in  substantially  the  same  relation  as  does  the 
Creative  Powder  asserted  by  Theology." — Nineteenth  Century,  July  1884,  p.  24. 
Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  that  the  words  quoted  in  the  last  note  were  originally 
written — "  one  Infinite  and  Eternal  Energy  by  which  all  things  are  created  and 
sustained." — Ihid.  p.  4. 

*  Ecclesiastical  Institutions,  pp,  839,  841. 

^  Mr.  Spencer,  when  pressed  in  controversy  by  Mr.  Harrison,  takes  great 
pains  to  show  how  positive  his  conception  of  the  ' '  Unknowable  "  is.  He  is 
astonished  that  his  opponent  should  assert  that  "none  of  the  positive  attributes 
which  have  ever  been  predicated  of  God  can  be  used  of  this  Energy";  maintains 
that,  instead  of  being  an  Everlasting  No,  Agnosticism  is  "  an  Everlasting  Yea"; 
denies  that  Agnosticism  is  "  anything  more  than  silent  with  respect  to  person- 
ality," seeing  that  "duty  requires  us  neither  to  affirm  nor  deny  personality"; 
holds  that  the  Unknowable  is  not  an  "  All-nothingness"  but  the  **  All-Being," 
reiterates  that  this  Reality  '*  stands  towards  the  universe  and  towards  ourselves 
in  the  same  relation  as  an  anthropomorphic  Creator  was  supposed  to  stand,"  and 
'*  bears  a  like  relation  with  it  not  only  to  human  thought,  but  to  human  feeling," 
etc. — Nineteenth  Century,  July  1884,  pp.  5-7,  25.  Mr.  Harrison  has  no  diffi- 
culty in  showing  in  what  contradictions  Mr.  Spencer  entangles  himself  by  the 
use  of  such  language. — Ihid.  Sept.  pp.  358,  359. 


10^     :  y  5  f}  ^p^  THklSTIC  POSTULATE 

Pantheism.  If  we  know  all  that  these  statements  imply 
about  the  Absolute,  there  is  no  bar  in  principle  to  our  know- 
ing a  great  deal  more.  A  significant  proof  of  this  is  the 
Development  development  which  the  system  has  received  in  the  hands  of 
b  m'^^F'\  ^^^  °^  ^^'  Sp^^c^r's  disciples,  Mr.  Fiske,  who  in  his  Cosmic 
into  Theism.  Philosophy,  and  still  more  in  his  book  on  The  Idea  of  God, 
has  wrought  it  out  into  a  kind  of  Theism.  He  discards  the 
term  "  Unknowable,"  and  writes :  "  It  is  enough  to  remind 
the  reader  that  Deity  is  unknowable,  just  in  so  far  as  it  is 
not  manifested  to  consciousness  through  the  phenomenal 
world ;  knowable,  just  in  so  far  as  it  is  thus  manifested  ; 
unknowable,  in  so  far  as  infinite  and  absolute  ;  knowable,  in 
the  order  of  its  phenomenal  manifestations ;  knowable,  in  a 
a  symbolic  way,  as  the  Power  which  is  disclosed  in  every 
throb  of  the  mighty  rhythmic  life  of  the  universe ;  knowable, 
as  the  eternal  Source  of  a  Moral  Law,  which  is  implicated 
with  each  action  of  our  lives,  and  in  obedience  to  which  lies 
our  only  guaranty  of  the  happiness  which  is  incorruptible,  and 
which  neither  inevitable  misfortune  nor  unmerited  obloquy 
can  take  away.  Thus,  though  we  may  not  by  searching  find 
out  God,  though  we  may  not  compass  infinitude,  or  attain  to 
absolute  knowledge,  we  may  at  least  know  all  that  it  concerns 
us  to  know,  as  intelligent  and  responsible  beings."  ^ 
The  incom-  It  has  not  been  left  for  Mr.  Spencer  to  discover  that,  in 

%^ God  reco  -  ^^^  depths  of  his  absolute  Being,  as  well  as  in  the  plentitude 
nised  by  Scrip  of  the  modcs  of  his  revealed   Being,   there  is  that  in  God 
ture  and  Theo-  ^\^{q\^  m\x^t   always   pass  our  comprehension, — that  in   the 
present  state  of  existence  it  is  only  very  dimly  and  distantly, 
and   by  large  use   of  "  symbolic   conceptions,"   that   we  can 
approximate  to  a  right  knowledge  of  God.     This  is  affirmed 
in  the  Bible  quite  as  strongly  as  it  is  by  the  agnostic  philo- 
sophers.    "  Canst  thou   by  searching  find  out  God  ?     Canst 
thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ? "  ^     "0  the  depth 
of  the  riches,  both  of  the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God  !  how 
unsearchable  are  His  judgments,  and  His  ways  past  finding 
1  Cosmic  Philosophy,  ii.  p.  470  ;  Idea  of  God,  Pref.  p.  28.  2  j^^  ^i.  7. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  103 

out ! "  ^     "  Now  I  know  in  part."  ^     In  this  sense  we   can 
speak   of    a    Christian   Agnosticism.^      This   incomprehensi-  ~    - 

bility,  however,  is  held  in  Scripture  to  arise,  not  from 
any  inherent  or  incurable  defect  in  the  human  faculties, 
but  simply  from  the  vastness  of  the  object,  in  the  know- 
ledge of  which,  nevertheless,  the  mind  may  continually  be 
growing.  The  universe  itself  in  its  immeasurable  extent 
vastly  transcends  our  present  powers  of  knowledge ;  how 
much  more  the  Author  of  the  universe !  This,  accordingly, 
is  not  the  point  we  have  in  dispute  with  Mr.  Spencer.  The 
point  is  not  whether,  in  the  depths  of  His  absolute  existence, 
there  is  much  in  God  that  must  remain  unknown  to  us ;  but 
whether  He  cannot  be  known  by  us  in  His  revealed  relations 
to  ourselves,  and  to  the  world  of  which  we  form  a  part ; 
whether  these  relations  are  not  also  in  their  measure  a  true 
expression  of  His  nature  and  character,  so  that  through  them 
we  come  to  know  something  of  Him — even  of  His  absolute 
Being  —  though  we  cannot  know  all  ?  When,  now,  the 
Agnostic  tells  us  that  knowledge  of  this  kind  is  impossible  The  Agnostic 
to  us,  see  in  what  contradiction  he  lands  himself.     Here  {^^^f  ^^^w 

Lroci  to  be  able 

a  man  who  says — "  I  know  nothing  of  God  ;  He  is  absolutely  to  affirm  a 
beyond  my  ken ;  I   cannot   form  the  faintest  conception  of  P"°"  ^^^"-^  ^^ 

cannot  reveal 

what  He  is."  And  yet  he  knows  so  much  about  God  as  to  Himself  in  re- 
be  able  to  say  beforehand  that  He  cannot  possibly  enter  into  ^<^iion. 
relations  with  human  beings  by  which  He  might  become 
known  to  them.  This  is  a  proposition  of  which  the  Agnostic, 
on  his  own  showing,  can  never  have  any  evidence.  If  God  is 
unknowable,  how  can  we  know  this  much  about  Him — that 
He  cannot  in  any  mode  or  form  enter  into  relations  with  us 
by  which  He  might  be  known  ?  Only  on  one  supposition 
can  this  be  maintained.     If,  indeed,  as  Mr.  Spencer  thinks, 

1  Kom.  xi.  33.  2  j  Qqj..  xiii.  12. 

^  "God,"  says  A-agustine,  "is  more  truly  thought  than  He  is  uttered,  and 
exists  more  truly  than  He  is  thought." — De  Trinitate,  Book  vii.  ch.  4.  "  Not 
the  definitely-known  God,"  says  Professor  Veitch,  "not  the  unknown  God,  is 
our  last  word,  far  less  the  unknowable  God,  but  the  ever-to  be-known  God." 
— Knowing  and  Being,  p.  323. 


104  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

the  nature  of  God  and  the  intelligence  of  man  are  two  things 
absolutely  disparate, — if,  as  Spinoza  said,  to  speak  of  God 
taking  on  Him  the  nature  of  man  is  as  absurd  as  to  speak  of 
a  circle  taking  on  it  the  nature  of  the  square,^ — then  not 
only  is  God  unknowable,  but  the  whole  Christian  system  is 
a  'priori  ruled  out  of  consideration.  This,  however,  is  a  pro- 
position which  can  never  be  proved,  and  we  have  seen  that 
the  attempt  to  prove  and  work  with  it  only  entangled  Mr. 
Spencer  in  a  mass  of  difficulties.  There  is  really,  on  his  own 
principles,  no  reason  why  he  should  not  admit  the  possibility 
of  a  relative  knovv^ledge  of  God,  as  true  in  its  way  as  the 
knowledge  which  we  have  of  space,  time,  matter,  force,  or 
cause, — all  which  notions,  as  well  as  that  of  the  Absolute,  he 
tells  us  are  prolific  of  intellectual  contradictions.^  Why,  for 
instance,  should  we  more  hesitate  to  speak  of  God  as  Intel- 
ligence than  to  speak  of  Him  as  Power ;  why  shrink  from 
attributing  to  Him  the  attribute  of  Personality  any  more 
than  that  of  cause  ?  ^  The  whole  objection,  therefore,  falls 
to  the  ground  with  the  intellectual  theory  on  which  it  is 
founded.  For  once  grant  that  the  nature  of  God  and  the 
intelligence  of  man  are  not  thus  foreign  to  each  other,  as 
Spencer  supposes ;  grant  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  and  bears  in  some  measure  His  likeness — then  man's 
mind  is  not  wholly  shut  up  within  the  limits  of  the  finite — 
there  is  an  absolute  element  in  it,  kindred  with  the  absolute 
reason  of  God,  and  real  knowledge  both  of  God  and  of  the 
nature  of  things  without  us  is  possible. 

//.  Positive         II.  The  a  priori  bar  with  which  Agnosticism  would  block 
evidence  for     ^^  ^^^  ^^  ^^  knowledge  of   God  being  thus  removed,  we 

the  Christian  ''  o  o  » 

view.  niay  proceed    to    inquire  how  it   stands   with    the    theistic 

postulate  of  the  Christian  view,  in  respect  of  the  positive 
evidence    in    its    behalf.      It   has   been   shown  that,  if  the 

^  Letter  to  Oldenburg,  Epist.  xxi.  2  pi^gi  Principles,  pp.  159-171. 

^  Cf.  Fiske,  Idea  of  God,  Pref.  p.  15 ;  and  Chapman's  Pre-Organk  Evolution, 
p.  254. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  105 

Christian  view  be  true,  it  must,  up  to  a  certain  point,  admit 
of  verification  by  reason.  The  doctrine  of  God's  existence 
must  be  shown  to  be  in  accord  with  reason,  and  to  be  in 
harmony  with  and  corroborated  by  the  facts  of  science  and 
of  the  religious  history  of  mankind.  Science,  indeed,  has  not 
for  its  object  the  determination  of  anything  supernatural. 
Yet  in  its  inquiries — dealing  as  it  does  with  laws  and  forces, 
and  with  the  widest  generalisations  of  experience — it  must 
come  to  a  point  at  which  the  questions  with  which  religion 
and  philosophy  deal  are  forced  upon  it,  and  it  has  to  take 
up  some  attitude  to  them.  The  facts  which  it  brings  to 
light,  the  interpretations  which  it  gives  of  these  facts,  cannot 
but  have  some  bearing  on  the  hypotheses  we  form  as  to  the 
ultimate  cause  of  existence.  If  it  does  not  cross  the  border- 
land, it  at  least  brings  us  within  sight  of  truths  which  do 
not  lie  within  its  proper  sphere,  and  points  the  way  to  their 
acceptance. 

1.  I  may  begin  with  certain  thiDgs  in  regard  to  which  it  is  i.  Concessions 
possible  to  claim  a  large  measure  of  agreement.     And —  tionar^^tri 

(1)  It  may  be  assumed,  with  little  fear  of  contradiction,  sophy. 
that  if  the  idea  of  God  is  to  be  entertained,  it  can  only  be  in  (i)  The  Mono- 
the  form  of  Monotheism.      The  Agnostic  will  grant  us  this  ^'^^^'"^^^  ^^^"^ 

°  alone  tenable. 

much.  Whatever  the  Power  is  which  works  in  the  universe, 
it  is  one.  "  As  for  Polytheism,"  says  a  writer  in  Lux  Mundi, 
"  it  has  ceased  to  exist  in  the  civilised  world.  Every  theist 
is,  by  a  rational  necessity,  a  monotheist."  ^  The  Christian 
assumption  of  the  unity  and  absoluteness  of  God — of  the 
dependence  of  the  created  universe  upon  Him — is  thus  con- 

^  Lux  Mundi,  p.  5S.  J.  S.  Mill  has  said  :  **  The  reason  then,  why  Mono- 
theism may  be  accepted  as  the  representative  of  Theism  in  the  abstract  is  not 
so  much  because  it  is  the  Theism  of  all  the  more  improved  portions  of  the  human 
race,  as  because  it  is  the  only  Theism  which  can  claim  for  itself  any  footing  on 
scientific  ground.  Every  other  theory  of  the  government  of  the  universe 
by  supernatural  beings  is  inconsistent  either  with  the  carrying  on  of  that 
government  through  a  continual  series  of  natural  antecedents,  according  to  fixed 
laws,  or  with  the  interdependence  of  each  of  these  series  upon  all  the  rest,  which 
are  two  of  the  most  general  results  of  science." — Three  Essays  on  Bellgion, 
p.  133. 


io6  THE  THE  I  STIC  POSTULATE 

firmed.  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  this  truth,  preached 
as  a  last  result  of  science  and  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution, 
is  a  first  truth  of  the  Biblical  religion.  It  is  the  Bible,  and 
the  Bible  alone,  which  has  made  Monotheism  the  possession 
of  the  world.  The  unity  of  God  was  declared  on  the  soil  of 
Israel  long  before  science  or  philosophy  had  the  means  of 
declaring  it.^  Through  Christianity  it  has  been  made  the 
possession  of  mankind.  On  the  soil  of  paganism,  we  see 
reason  struggling  towards  this  idea,  striking  out  partial 
glimpses  of  it,  sometimes  making  wonderful  approximations 
to  it,  but  never  in  its  own  strength  lifting  itself  clear  away 
from  Polytheism  to  the  pure  conception  of  the  one  spiritual 
God,  such  as  we  find  it  in  Christianity,  still  less  making  this 
the  foundation  of  a  religion.  It  is  through  Christianity,  not 
through  philosophical  speculation,  that  this  truth  has  become 
the  support  of  faith,  a  light  to  which  the  investigations  of 
science  themselves  owe  much,  and  a  sustaining  principle  and 
power  in  the  lives  of  men.^ 
(2)  The  Power  (2)  This  Powcr  which  the  evolutionist  requires  us  to 
w  tc  wor  s    pg(3QCTnise  as  the  oritjin  of  all  things  is  the  source  of  a  rational 

m  the  universe  o  &  & 

is  the  source  order.  This  is  a  second  fact  about  which  there  can  be  no 
dispute.  There  is  a  rational  order  and  connection  of  things 
in  the  universe.  Science  is  not  only  the  means  by  which 
our  knowledge  of  this  order  is  extended,  but  it  is  itself  a 
standing  proof  of  the  existence  of  this  order.  Science  can 
only  exist  on  the  assumption  that  the  world  is  not  chaos  but 
cosmos, — that  there  is  unity,  order,  law,  in  it, — that  it  is  a 
coherent  and  consistent  whole  of  things,  construable  through 
our  intelligence,  and  capable  of  being  expressed  in  forms  of 
human  speech.  And  the  more  carefully  we  examine  the 
universe,  we  find  that  this  is  really  its  character.     It  is  an 

^  See  Note  B. — Old  Testament  Monotheism. 

2  Cf.  Naville's  Modern  Physics — "  The  Philosophy  of  the  Founders  of  Modern 
Physics,"  pp.  154-243  (Eng,  trans.) ;  Fairbairn's  Studies  in  the  Phil,  of  Pel.  and 
Hist. — "  Theism  and  Scientific  Speculation,"  pp.  66-71 ;  and  an  article  by  Dr. 
Alex.  Mair,  on  "  The  Contributions  of  Christianity  to  Science,"  in  Presbyterian 
Review,  Jan.  1888. 


of  a  rational 
order. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  107 

harmonious  universe.  There  is  orderly  sequence  in  it.  There 
is  orderly  connection  of  part  and  part.  There  is  that 
determinate  connection  we  call  law.  There  is  the  harmonious 
adjustment  of  means  to  ends,  which  again  are  embraced  in 
higher  ends,  till,  in  the  nobler  systems,  the  teleological  idea 
is  extended  to  the  whole  system.^  In  many  ways  does  Mr- 
Spencer  express  in  his  writings  his  trust  that  this  Power  of 
which  he  speaks — inscrutable  as  he  proclaims  it  to  be — 
may  be  depended  on  not  to  put  him,  as  the  authors  of  the 
"  Unseen  Universe  "  phrase  it,  "  to  intellectual  confusion."  ^ 
To  give  only  one  instance — he  bids  the  man  who  has  some 
highest  truth  to  speak,  not  to  be  afraid  to  speak  it  out,  on  the 
ground  that  "  it  is  not  for  nothing  that  he  has  in  him  these 
sympathies  with  some  principles,  and  repugnance  to  others. 
.  .  .  He,  like  every  other  man,"  he  says,  "  may  properly 
consider  himself  as  one  of  the  myriad  agencies  through  whom 
works  the  Unknown  Cause ;  and  when  the  Unknown  Cause 
produces  in  him  a  certain  belief,  he  is  thereby  authorised  to 
profess  and  act  out  that  belief.  For  to  render  in  their 
highest  sense  the  words  of  the  poet — 

*  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean  ;  over  that  art 
Which  you  say  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
Which  Nature  makes.' 

N"ot  as  adventitious,  therefore,  will  the  wise  man  regard  the 
faith  that  is  in  him."  ^  Who  does  not  see  in  these  remarkable 
sentences  that,  notwithstanding  his  reiteration  of  the  words 
"Unknown  Cause,"  "Unknowable,"  Mr.  Spencer's  latent 
faith  is  that  this  Power  which  works  in  the  world  and  in 
men  is  a  Power  working  according  to  rational  laws  and  for 
rational  ends — is  on  this  account  an  object  of  trust — we 
might  almost  add,  a  source  of  inspiration  ?  But  now,  if  this 
is   so,  can   the    conclusion    be    avoided  that    the    Power  on 

1  So   Mr.    Spencer  speaks   of   "the  naturally-revealed  end  towards  which 
the  Power  manifested  throughout  Evolution  works."— i)ato  of  Ethics,  p.  171. 

2  Unseen  Universe,  5th  ed.,  p.  88.  ^  First  Principles^  p.  123. 


io8  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

which  we  thus  depend  rationally  is  itself  rational  ?  It  is 
knowable  at  least  thus  far,  that  we  know  that  it  is  the 
source  of  a  rational  order — of  an  order  construable  through 
our  intelligence.  If  now  it  is  asserted  that  the  source  of  this 
rational  order  is  not  itself  rational,  surely  the  proof  rests,  not 
on  him  who  affirms,  but  on  him  who  denies.^  If  Mr.  Spencer 
replies,  as  he  does  reply,  that  it  is  an  "  erroneous  assumption 
that  the  choice  is  between  personality  and  something  lower 
than  personality,  whereas  the  choice  is  rather  between 
personality  and  something  higher,"  and  asks — "  Is  it  not  just 
possible  that  there  is  a  mod-e  of  being  as  much  transcending 
intelligence  and  will,  as  these  transcend  mechanical  motion?" ^ 
— the  answer  (not  to  dwell  on  the  utterly  disparate  character 
of  the  things  compared)  is  ready — this  higher  mode  of  being 
cannot  at  least  be  less  than  conscious.  It  may  be  a  higher 
kind  of  consciousness,  but  it  cannot  be  higher  than  con- 
sciousness. Nor  is  there  the  slightest  ground  for  the 
assumption  that  there  can  be  anything  higher  than  self- 
conscious  intelligence  or  reason.^  If  we  find  in  the  universe 
an  order  congruous  to  the  reason  we  have  in  ourselves,  this  is 
warranty  sufficient  for  believing,  till  the  contrary  is  proved, 
that  the  Pow^r  which  gives  rise  to  this  order  is  not  only 
Power,  but  Intelligence  and  Wisdom  as  well. 
(3)  The  Power  (3)  Again,  this  Power  which  the  evolutionist  compels  us 
which  works     ^Q  recognise  is  the  source  of  a  moral  order.     Butler,  in  his 

in  the  universe 

is  the  source  of  ^'i^cc^ogy,  undertook  to  prove  that  the  constitution  and  course 
a  moral  order.  Qf  things  is  on  the  side  of  virtue.     His  argument  is  some- 
times spoken  of  as  obsolete,  but  it  is  not  so  much  obsolete 
as  simply  transformed.     It  is  a  new-fashioned  phrase  which 
Matthew  Arnold  uses  when  he  speaks  of  a  "Power  not  our- 

^  Cf.  Chapman's  Pre-Organic  Evolution,  pp.  226,  227,  251,  282. 

^  First  Principles,  p.  109. 

^  Prof.  Seth  has  justly  said—**  Nothing  can  be  more  certain  than  that  all 
philosophical  explanation  must  be  explanation  of  the  lower  by  the  higher,  and 
not  vice  versa  ;  and  if  self-consciousness  is  the  highest  fact  we  know,  then  we 
are  justified  in  using  the  conception  of  self-consciousness  as  our  best  key  to  the 
ultimate  nature  of  existence  as  a  whole.''— Hegelianism  and  Personality/,  p.  89. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  109 

selves  that  makes  for  righteousness,"  but  it  means  just  what 
Butler  meant,  that  the  make  and  constitution  of  things  in 
the  universe  is  for  righteousness,  and  not  for  its  opposite. 
Righteous  conduct  works  out  good  results  for  the  individual 
and  for  society ;  vicious  conduct  works  out  bad  results. 
But  what  I  wish  to  point  out  at  present  is  the  new  support 
which  this  view  receives  from  the  theory  of  agnostic 
evolution,  which  is  supposed  by  many  to  overthrow  it. 
No  philosophy,  which  aims  at  completeness,  can  avoid  the 
obligation  resting  on  it  of  showing  that  it  is  capable  of 
yielding  a  coherent  theory  of  human  life.  The  construction 
of  a  system  of  ethics,  therefore,  Mr.  Spencer  justly  regards 
as  that  part  of  his  work  to  which  all  the  other  parts  are 
subsidiary.  The  theological  basis  of  ethics  is  rejected ; 
utilitarianism  also  is  set  aside  as  inadequate ;  and  in  room 
of  these  the  attempt  is  made  to  establish  the  rules  of  right 
conduct  on  a  scientific  basis  by  deducing  them  from  the 
general  laws  of  evolution.  You  find  a  Power  evolving 
itself  in  the  universe.  Study,  says  Mr.  Spencer,  the  laws 
of  its  evolution :  find  "  the  naturally  revealed  end  towards 
which  the  Power  manifested  throughout  evolution  works " ; 
then,  "  since  evolution  has  been,  and  is  still,  working 
towards  the  highest  life,  it  follows  that  conforming  to 
these  principles  by  which  the  higher  life  is  achieved,  is 
furthering  that  end."^  And  when  a  system  is  constructed 
on  this  basis,  what  is  the  result  ?  Why,  that  we  are  simply 
back  to  the  old  morality — to  what  Mr.  Spencer  himself  calls 
'*  a  rationalised  version  of  the  ethical  principles "  of  the 
current  creed.^  The  ethical  laws  which  are  deduced  from 
the  observations  of  the  laws  of  evolution  are  identical  with 
those  which  Christian  ethics  and  the  natural  conscience  of 
man  in  the  higher  stages  of  its  development  have  always 
recognised.^     What  is  the  inference  ?     These  principles  were 

1  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  171.  ^  Data  of  Ethics,  p.  257. 

3  Cf.  article  by  Professor  Laidlaw  on  "  Modern  Thought  in  Relation  to  Christ- 
ianity and  the  Christian  Church,"  in  Presbyterian  Eevieiv,  1885,  p.  618. 


no  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

not  originally  gained  by  scientific  induction.  They  were  the 
expressions  of  the  natural  consciousness  of  mankind  as  to 
distinctions  of  right  and  wrong,  or  were  promulgated  by 
teachers  who  claimed  to  have  received  them  from  a  higher 
source.  In  either  case,  they  were  recognised  by  man  as 
principles  independently  affirmed  by  conscience  to  be  right. 
And  now  that  the  process  of  evolution  comes  to  be  scienti- 
fically studied,  we  are  told  that  the  principles  of  conduct 
yielded  by  it,  in  light  of  the  end  to  which  evolution  naturally 
works,  absolutely  coincide  with  those  which  spring  from  this 
"  work  of  the  law  "  written  in  men's  hearts.  What  else  can 
we  conclude,  assuming  that  the  evolutionist  is  right  in  his 
deduction,  but  that  the  universe  is  constructed  in  harmony 
with  right ;  that  the  laws  which  we  have  already  recognised 
as  of  binding  authority  in  conscience  are  also  laws  of  the 
objective  world ;  that  the  principles  of  right  discovered  in 
conscience,  and  the  moral  order  of  society  based  on  these 
principles,  are  productions  of  the  one  great  evolutionary  cause, 
which  is  the  Force  impelling  and  controlling  the  whole 
onward  movement  of  humanity  ?  There  is  certainly  nothing 
here  to  conflict  with,  but  everything  to  support  the  view 
that  the  Power  which  is  above  all,  and  through  all,  and  in 
all  things,  is  not  only  Intelligence  and  Wisdom,  but  also  an 
Ethical  Will.  At  least,  to  most  persons  who  dispassionately 
study  the  subject,  I  think  it  will  appear  reasonable  that  a 
Power  which  has  an  ethical  end  must  be  an  ethical  Power. 
If,  further,  this  ethical  end  embraces,  as  Mr.  Spencer  seems 
to  believe,  the  highest  perfection  and  happiness  of  man,^  it  is 
still  more  difficult  to  conceive  how  it  should  have  a  place  in 
the  nature  of  things  unless  the  Supreme  Power  were  itself 
benevolent  and  good.  It  is  not,  it  should  be  remembered, 
as  if  this  ethical  end  were  an  after-thought  or  accident.  It 
is,  according  to  the  theory,  the  final  and  supreme  goal  to 
which  the  whole  process  of  evolution  for  countless  millenniums 
has  been  working  up,  and  only  when  it  is  reached  will  the 

1  Data  of  Ethics,  pp.  253-257. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  1 1 1 

ripest  fruit  of  the  whole  development  be  gathered.  But  how 
is  this  possible,  except  on  a  teleological  view  of  things ;  and  ~  - 

what  teleology  can  yield  a  moral  result  which  does  not 
postulate  at  the  other  end  a  moral  cause  ?  Mr.  Spencer  may 
deprecate  as  he  will  the  imposing  of  moral  ideas  generated 
in  our  consciousness  upon  the  Infinite  which  transcends 
consciousness.  But  it  is  only  his  own  arbitrary  denial  of 
consciousness  to  the  Absolute,  and  his  arbitrary  assumption 
that  there  can  be  no  kindredship  between  that  absolute 
consciousness  and  our  own,  which  prevents  him  from  drawing 
the  natural  conclusion  from  his  own  premises.  But  if  to 
Mr.  Spencer's  definition  of  the  Absolute,  as  "  an  Infinite  and 
Eternal  Energy  from  which  all  things  proceed,"  we  add, 
as  I  think  we  are  entitled  to  do,  the  predicates  of  infinite 
Intelligence  and  of  Wisdom,  and  of  Ethical  Will,  we  have  all 
the  fundamental  theistic  positions  affirmed. 

If  the  First  Cause  of  the  universe  is  proved  by  its  mani-  The  term 
festations   to   be   at   once   rational  Intelligence  and   Ethical      T^f^?, 

°  as  applied  to 

Will,  there  should  be  no  excess  of  scrupulosity  in  applying  to  God. 
it  the  term  "  Personal."  I  have  thus  far  reasoned  on  the 
assumptions  of  Mr.  Spencer,  and  have  spoken  of  his  Ultimate 
Eeality  as  he  does  himself,  as  "Power,"  "Eorce,"  "Cause," 
etc.  But  I  cannot  leave  this  part  of  the  subject  without 
remarking  that  Mr.  Spencer  is  far  from  having  the  field  of 
thought  all  to  himself  on  this  question  of  the  nature  of  the 
Ultimate  Existence.  It  was  shown  in  last  Lecture  how, 
starting  from  a  different  point  of  view,  the  higher  philosophy 
of  the  century — the  Neo-Kantian  and  Neo-Hegelian — reaches, 
with  a  very  large  degree  of  certainty,  the  conclusion  that  the 
ultimate  principle  of  the  universe  must  be  self-conscious. 
It  is  well  known  that  the  Personality  of  God  was  a  point 
left  in  very  great  doubt  in  the  system  of  Hegel.^  God  was 
conceived  of  as  the  Absolute  Eeason,  but  the  drift  of  the 
system  seemed  to  point  rather  to  an  impersonal  Eeason 
which  first  becomes  conscious  of    itself   in  man,  than  to  a 

2  See  Note  C— Hegel's  Idea  of  God. 


112  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

self-consciousness  complete  and  perfect  from  the  beginning. 
Whatever  its  other  defects,  the  later  Hegelianism  has  shaken 
itself  clear  of  this  ambiguity,  and  affirms  with  emphasis  that 
the  principle  at  the  basis  of  the  universe  is  self-conscious.^ 
The  other  line  of  development — the  Neo-Kantian — is,  in  the 
person  of  its  chief  representative,  Hermann  Lotze,  explicitly 
theistic.  I  only  notice  here  that  after  a  careful  discussion  of 
all  the  arguments  against  ascribing  Personality  to  the  Divine 
Being,  on  the  ground  that  personality  implies  the  limitations 
of  the  finite,  Lotze  arrives  at  this  conclusion,  diametrically 
the  opposite  of  Mr.  Spencer's — "  Perfect  personality  is  recon- 
cilable only  with  the  conception  of  an  infinite  Being;  for 
finite  beings  only  an  approximation  to  this  is  attainable."  ^ 
It  is  interesting,  further,  to  notice  that  even  Neo-Spencer- 
ianism — if  I  may  coin  such  a  term — has  come  round,  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  Fiske,  to  a  similar  affirmation.  "The  final 
conclusion,"  he  says,  "  is,  that  we  must  not  say  that  '  God 
is  Force,'  since  such  a  phrase  inevitably  calls  up  those 
pantheistic  notions  of  blind  necessity,  which  it  is  my  express 
desire  to  avoid  ;  but  always  bearing  in  mind  the  symbolic 
character  of  the  words,  we  may  say  that  '  God  is  Spirit.' 
How  my  belief  in  the  personality  of  God  could  be  more 
strongly  affirmed  without  entirely  deserting  the  language  of 
modern  philosophy  and  taking  refuge  in  pure  mythology,  I 
am  unable  to  see."  * 
2.  The  theoretic  2.  It  is  now  ncccssary  to  come  to  closer  quarters,  and  to 
"/''^^^V''^''^^ ask  whether  the  ordinary  proofs   for   the  existence  of  God, 

the  existence  of  •'     ^ 

God— question  which  havc  been  so  much  assailed  since  the  time  of  Kant, 

of  their  valid- 

^Yy  1  See  Lecture  II.  p.  74.     The  Neo-Hegelian  theory,  however,  is  far  from 

satisfactory  from  the  point  of  view  of  Theism  in  other  respects.     See  Note  D. — 

Defects  of  the  Neo-Hegelian  View. 

'^  Outlines  of  the  Pliil.  of  Religion,  ^.  69  (Eng.  trans.).  See  the  whole  dis- 
cussion (chap,  iv.),  and  the  fuller  treatment  in  the  Microcosmus,  ii.  pp.  659- 
688.  Lotze's  closing  words  in  the  latter  are:  "Perfect  Personality  is  in 
God  only,  to  all  finite  minds  there  is  allotted  but  a  pale  copy  thereof ;  the 
finiteness  of  the  finite  is  not  a  producing  condition  of  this  Personality,  but  a 
limit  and  a  hindrance  to  its  development." 

^  Idea  of  God,  p.  17.  Cf.  the  instructive  treatment  of  this  subject  of  Per- 
sonality in  Professor  Iverach's  Is  God  Knowable  ?  pp.  7,  12-37,  223-233. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  1 1 3 

still  retain  their  old  cogency,  and  if  not,  what  modifications 
require  to  be  made  on  them.  The  time-honoured  division  of 
these  proofs — which  have  recently  received  so  able  a  re- 
handling  at  the  instance  of  Dr.  Hutchison  Stirling  in  his 
"  Gilford  Lectures  " — is  into  the  cosraological,  the  teleological, 
and  the  ontological,  to  which,  as  belonging  to  another 
category,  falls  to  be  added  the  moral.  Besides  these,  Kant 
thinks,  there  are  no  others.^  This,  however,  must  be  taken 
with  qualification,  if  the  remark  is  meant  to  apply  to  the 
old  scholastic  forms  in  which  these  proofs  have  customarily 
been  put.  Not  only  is  there  no  necessity  for  the  proofs 
being  confined  to  these  forms — some  of  which  are  clearly 
inadequate — but  they  are  capable  of  many  extensions,  and 
even  transformations,  as  the  result  of  advancing  knowledge, 
and  of  the  better  insight  of  reason  into  its  own  nature.  I 
may  add  that  I  do  not  attach  much  importance  in  this  con- 
nection to  objections  to  these  proofs  drawn  from  Kant's 
peculiar  theory  of  knowledge.^  If  it  can  be  shown  that  in 
the  exercise  of  our  reason  as  directed  on  the  world  in  which 
we  live — or  on  its  own  nature — we  are  compelled  either  to 
cease  to  think,  or  to  think  in  a  particular  way, — if  we  find 
that  these  necessities  of  thought  are  not  peculiar  to  in- 
dividuals here  and  there,  but  have  been  felt  by  the  soundest 
thinkers  in  all  ages,  and  among  peoples  widely  separated  from 
each  other, — we  may  be  justified  in  believing  that  our  reason 
is  not  altogether  an  untrustworthy  guide,  but  may  be  depended 
on  with  considerable  confidence  to  direct  us  to  the  truth. 

Neither  shall  I  waste  time  at  this  stage  by  discussing  in  Meaning  of 
what  sense  it  is   permissible    to    speak    of    "proof"    of    ^o''^^^!^-^  ^^ 
transcendent  a  reality  as  the  Divine  existence.     We  remem-  Divine 
ber  here  the  saying  of  Jacobi  that  a  God  capable  of  proof  ^^^^^^f^'^'^- 
would  be  no  God  at  all ;  since  this  would  mean  that  there  is 
something  higher  than  God  from  which  His  existence  can  be 

1  Kritik  d.  r.  Vernunft,  p.  416  (Eng.  trans,  p.  363). 

-  See  an  acute  criticism  of  Kant's  Theory  of  Knowledge  in  Stalilin's  Kant^ 
Lotze,  und  Bitschl,  pp.  6-83  (Eng.  trans.). 

8 


114  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

deduced.  But  this  applies  only  to  the  ordinary  reasoning  of 
the  deductive  logic.  It  does  not  apply  to  that  higher  kind 
of  proof  which  may  be  said  to  consist  in  the  mind  being 
guided  back  to  the  clear  recognition  of  its  own  ultimate  pre- 
suppositions. Proof  in  Theism  certainly  does  not  consist  in 
deducing  God's  existence  as  a  lower  from  a  higher ;  but 
rather  in  showing  that  God's  existence  is  itself  the  last 
postulate  of  reason — the  ultimate  basis  on  which  all  other 
knowledge,  all  other  belief  rests.  What  we  mean  by  proof 
of  God's  existence  is  simply  that  there  are  necessary  acts  of 
thought  by  which  we  rise  from  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  from 
the  caused  to  the  uncaused,  from  the  contingent  to  the 
necessary,  from  the  reason  involved  in  the  structure  of  the 
universe  to  an  universal  and  eternal  Eeason,  which  is  the 
ground  of  all,  from  morality  in  conscience  to  a  moral  Lawgiver 
and  Judge.  In  this  connection  the  three  theoretical  proofs 
constitute  an  inseparable  unity  — "  constitute  together,"  as 
Dr.  Stirling  finely  declares,  "  but  the  three  undulations  of 
a  single  wave,  v/hich  wave  is  but  a  natural  rise  and  ascent 
to  God,  on  the  part  of  man's  own  thought,  with  man's  own 
experience  and  consciousness  as  the  object  before  him."  ^ 
(i)  The  COS'  (1)  Adopting  the  usual  arrangement,  I  speak  first  of  the 
mo  ogica  cosmological  proof,  which,  from  the  contingency  and  mutability 

of  the  world, — from  its  finite,  dependent,  changeful,  multiple 
character, — concludes  to  an  infinite  and  necessary  Being  as 
its  ground  and  cause.  That  this  movement  of  thought  is 
necessary  is  shown  by  the  whole  history  of  philosophy  and 
religion.  Kant,  who  subjects  the  argument  to  a  severe 
criticism,  nevertheless  admits — "  It  is  something  very  remark- 
able that,  on  the  supposition  that  something  exists,  I  cannot 
avoid  the  inference  that  something  exists  necessarily."  ^     The 

^  Philosophy  and  Theology,  p.  45.  On  the  theistic  proofs  generally,  and 
Kant's  criticism  of  them,  cf.  Caird's  Philosoj)hy  of  EeUg!on,  pp.  133-159, 
Professor  E.  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Kant,  ii.  pp.  102-129;  and  Dr.  Stirling's 
work  cited  above. 

2  Kritik,  p.  431  (Eiig.  trans,  p.  378).  See  Xote  E.— Kant  on  the  Cosmo- 
logical  Argument. 


OF  I  HE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  115 

question  then  arises — Is  the  world  this  necessary  Being  ? 
The  cosmological  proof  on  its  various  sides  is  directed  to 
showing  that  it  is  not, — that  it  is  not  sufficient  for  its  own 
explanation, — that,  therefore,  it  must  have  its  ground  and 
origin  in  some  other  being  that  is  necessary.  Whatever 
exists  has  either  the  reason  of  its  existence  in  itself,  or  has  it 
in  something  else.  But  that  the  world  has  not  the  reason  of 
its  existence  in  itself — is  not,  in  Spinoza's  phrase,  causa  sui, 
is  not  a  necessarily  existing  being — is  shown  in  various  ways.  T/ie  world  not 

i.  By  the,  contingency  of  its  existence. — A  necessary  Being,  ^^^  ^^<^^^^^^y 
as  Kant   himself  defines   it,  is   one  the  necessity  of  whose  i.  By  the  con- 
existence  is  given  through  its  possibility,  i.e.  the  non-existence  ^^^^s^^^y  ^f^^^^ 

cxistcttcc  ' 

of  which  cannot  be  thought  of  as  possible.^  But  the  world  is 
not  an  existence  of  this  character.  We  can  think  of  its  non- 
existence without  contradiction — as,  e.g.,  we  cannot  think  of 
the  non-existence  of  space  and  time.  We  can  think  away 
all  the  contents  of  space  and  time,  but  we  cannot  think  away 
space  and  time  themselves. 

ii.  By  the  dependency  of  its  several  parts. — It  is  made  up  ii.  By  the  de- 
of  finite  parts,  each  of  which  is  dependent  on  the  others,  and^^'^'^'^T'^''-^^^'' 

■^  several  pai-ts  ; 

sustains  definite  relations  to  them  ;  its  parts,  therefore,  have 
not  the  character  of  self -subsistence.  But  a  world  made  up 
of  parts,  none  of  which  is  self-subsistent,  cannot  as  a  whole 
be  self-subsistent,  or  the  necessary  Being.^ 

iii.  By  its  tem]poral  successio7i  of  effects. — The  world  is    in  iii.  By  its 
constant  flux  and  change.     Causes  give  birth  to  effects,  and  ^^''^A^'^^/«^^- 

^  °  cess/on  of 

effects  depend  on  causes.  Each  state  into  which  it  passes /?^gf/j. 
has  its  determining  conditions  in  some  immediately  preceding 
state.  This  fact,  apart  from  the  general  proof  of  contingency, 
suggests  the  need  of  conceiving  not  only  of  a  necessary 
ground,  but  likewise  of  a  First  Cause  of  the  universe.  The 
alternative  supposition  is  that  of  an  eternal  series  of  causes 
and  effects — a  conception  which  is  unthinkable,  and  affords 
no  resting-place   for  reason.      What  can  be  more  self-con- 

1  Kritik,  p.  102  (Eng.  trans,  p.  68). 

2  Cf.  Dr.  Stirling,  in  Phil,  and  T/ieoI.  p.  126. 


ii6 


THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 


Objection  to 
this  proof— it 
does  not  show 
what  the 
necessary 
Beinz  is. 


The  religious 
experience  cor- 
responding to 
this  proof— 
consciousness 
of  absolute 
dependence. 


tradictory  than  the  hypothesis  of  a  chain  of  causes  and  effects, 
each  link  of  which  hangs  on  a  preceding  link,  while  yet  the 
whole  chain  hangs  on  nothing.^  Eeason,  therefore,  itself 
points  us  to  the  need  of  a  First  Cause  of  the  universe,  who  is 
at  the  same  time  a  self-existing,  necessary,  infinite  Being. 

It  is,  since  Kant's  time,  customarily  made  an  objection  to 
this  argument,  that  it  only  takes  us  as  far  as  some  necessary 
being, — it  does  not  show  us  in  the  least  degree  what  kind  of 
a  being  this  is — whether,  e.g.,  in  the  world  or  out  of  it, 
whether  the  world-soul  of  the  Stoics,  the  pantheistic  sub- 
stance of  Spinoza,  the  impersonal  reason  of  Hegel,  or  the 
personal  God  of  the  theist.  This  may  be,  and  therefore  the 
cosmological  argument  may  need  the  other  arguments  to  com- 
plete it.  It  will  be  found,  however,  when  we  go  more  deeply 
(in  the  ontological  argument)  into  the  conception  of  necessary 
being,  that  there  is  only  one  kind  of  existence  which  answers 
to  this  description,  and  with  this  more  perfect  conception 
the  cosmological  argument  will  then  connect  itself. 

As  thus  presented,  the  cosmological  argument  is  a  process 
of  thought.  I  cannot  leave  it,  however,  without  pointing  out 
that  it  stands  connected  with  a  direct  fact  of  consciousness, 
which,  as  entering  into  experience,  changes  this  proof  to  some 
extent  from  a  merely  logical  into  a  real  one.  Not  to  speak 
of  the  immediate  impression  of  transitoriness,  finitude,  con- 
tingency, vanity,  which,  prior  to  all  reasoning,  one  receives 
from  the  world,^  and  which  finds  expression,  more  or  less, 
in  all  religions,  there  is,  at  the  very  root  of  our  religious 
consciousness,  that  "feeling  of  absolute  dependence"  which 


^  Dr.  Stirling  says,  replying  to  Hume :  "  No  multiplication  of  parts  will 
make  a  whole  potent  if  each  part  is  impotent.  You  will  hardly  reach  a  valid 
conclusion  where  your  every  step  is  invalid.  ...  It  will  be  vain  to  extract 
one  necessity  out  of  a  whole  infinitude  of  contingencies.  Nor  is  it  at  all  possible 
for  such  infinitude  of  contingencies  to  be  even  conceivable  by  reason.  If  each 
link  of  the  chain  hangs  on  another,  the  whole  will  hang,  and  only  hang,  even 
in  eternity,  unsuppoi,-ted,  like  some  stark  serpent,  unless  you  find  a  hook  for 
it.  Add  weakness  to  weakness,  in  any  quantity,  you  will  never  make  strength. " 
—Phil,  and  Theol.  p.  262. 

^  Cf.  Caird,  Phil,  of  Religion,  p.  135. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  117 

Schleiermacher  fixes  on  as  the  very  essence  of  religion;^  and 
which  reappears  in  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy  in  a   changed  — - 

form  as  the  immediate  consciousness  of  an  absolute  Power 
on  which  we  and  our  universe  alike  depend.  This  feeling  of 
dependence,  so  natural  to  man  and  interweaving  itself  with 
all  his  religious  experiences,  is  the  counterpart  in  the 
practical  sphere  of  the  cosmological  argument  in  the  logical. 
Both  need  their  explanation  in  something  deeper  than  them- 
selves, namely,  in  the  possession  by  man  of  a  rational  nature, 
which  makes  him  capable  of  rising  in  thought  and  feeling 
above  the  finite.  And  as,  in  the  theoretic  sphere,  the  cosmo- 
logical argument  presses  forward  to  its  completion  in  another 
and  a  higher,  so  in  the  religious  sphere  the  rational  nature 
of  man  forbids  that  this  sense  of  dependence  should  remain  a 
mere  feeling  of  dependency  on  a  blind  Power.^  Eeligion  must 
free,  bless,  inspire,  strengthen  men.  From  the  first,  there- 
fore, the  soul  is  at  work,  seeking  in  its  depths,  and  in 
obedience  to  its  own  laws,  to  change  this  relation  of  depend- 
ence into  a  free  and  personal  one. 

(2)  The  second  argument  for  the  Divine  existence  is  \h^{2)Teleologicai 
teleological,  —  better  known  simply  as  the  design  argument.  ^^  ^^^^^ 
Kant  speaks  of  this  oldest  and  most  popular  of  the  theistic  Kant's 
arguments  with  great  respect ;  and  the  objections  which  he  <^^'^^^^^^^^' 
makes    to    it    affect   more  its   adequacy    to  do   all    that    is 
expected   from  it  than  its  force  so  far  as  it  goes.     It  does 
not,  he  thinks,  prove  a  Creator,  but  only  an  Architect,  of  the 
world ;  it  does  not  prove  an  infinite,  but  only  a  very  great 
Intelligence,  etc.^     I  may  remark,  however,  that  if  it  proves 
even  this,  it  does  a  great  deal ;  and  from  an  intelligence  so 
great  as   to  hold  in  its  ken  the  plan  and  direction  of  the 
universe,  the   step   will  not   be    found  a  great   one  to   the 
Infinite  Intelligence  which  we  call  God.     But  the  argument, 
in  the  right  conception  of  it,  does  more  than  Kant  allows, 
and  is  a  step  of  transition  to  the  final  one — the  ontological. 

^  D&r  christ.  Glauhe,  sees.  3  and  4. 

"  See  Note  F. — Kant  on  the  Teleological  Argument.. 


.  ii8  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

Argument  A  new  argument  against  design  in  nature  has  been  found 

against  design  -^^  recent  times  in  the  doctrine  of  evolution.     The  proof  we 

from  evolu-  i  •  e 

tion.  are  considering  turns,  as  everyone  knows,  on  the  existence  or 

ends  in  nature.  In  Kant's  words — "  In  the  world  we  find 
everywhere  clear  signs  of  an  order  which  can  only  spring 
from  design — an  order  realised  with  the  greatest  wisdom, 
and  in  a  universe  which  is  indescribably  varied  in  content, 
and  in  extent  infinite."  ^  In  organisms  particularly  we  see  the 
most  extraordinary  adaptations  of  means  to  ends — structures 
of  almost  infinite  complexity  and  wonderful  perfection — con- 
trivances in  which  we  have  precisely  the  same  evidence  of 
the  adjustment  of  the  parts  to  produce  the  ends,  as  in  human 
works  of  art.2  From  this  the  inference  is  drawn  that  a  world 
so  full  of  evidences  of  rational  purpose  can  only  be  the  work 
of  a  wise  and  intelligent  mind.  But  this  argument  is  broken 
down  if  it  can  be  shown  that  what  look  like  ends  in  nature 
are  not  really  such,  but  simply  results — that  the  appearance 
of  apparently  designed  arrangements  to  produce  certain  ends 
can  be  explained  by  the  action  of  causes  which  do  not  imply 
intelligence.  This  is  what  evolution,  in  the  hands  of  some 
of  its  expounders,  undertakes  to  do.  By  showing  how 
structures  may  have  arisen  through  natural  selection,  operat- 
ing to  the  preservation  of  favourable  variations  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  it  is  thought  that  the  aid  of  intelligence  may  be 
dispensed  with,  and  that  a  death-blow  is  given  to  teleology.^ 
The  eye,  for  example,  may  have  resulted  from  the  gradual 
accumulation  of  small  variations,  each  of  them  accidental, 
and  arising  from  unknown  laws  in  the  organism,  but  each,  as 

1  Kritlh,  p.  436  (Eng.  trans.  384). 

^  No  recent  school  1ms  done  more  to  elaborate  the  proof  of  teleology  in  Nature 
than  that  from  which  the  opposite  might  have  been  expected — the  pessimistic 
school.  Cf.  Schopenhaner's,  Die,  Welt  ah  Wille  und  Vorstellung  (Book  ii. 
chap.  26,  **  On  Teleology"),  and  Hartmann's  Phil,  d.  Unhewussten,  passim. 

2  Thus,  e.g.  Strauss,  Haeckel,  Helmholtz,  G.  Romanes,  "Physicus."  Helm- 
lioltz,  as  quoted  by  Strauss,  says  :  "  Darwin's  theory  shows  how  adaptation  of 
structure  in  organisms  can  originate  without  any  intermixture  of  intelligence, 
through  the  blind  operation  of  a  natural  law." — Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe, 
p.  216.  Mr.  Romanes  says  :  "  If  [plants  and  animals]  were  specially  created, 
the  evidence  of  supernatural  design  remains  unrefuted  and  irrefutable,  whereas 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W.  1 1 9 

it  arises,  giving  to  its  possessor  some  slight  advantage  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.     It  is  a  simple  case  of  the  survival  ~    ~ 

of  the  fittest.  Instead  of  the  advantage  resulting  from  a 
designed  arrangement,  the  appearance  of  arrangement  results 
from  the  advantage.  In  reality,  however,  the  facts  of 
evolution  do  not  weaken  the  proof  from  design,  but  rather 
immensely  enlarge  it  by  showing  all  things  to  be  bound 
together  in  a  vaster,  grander  plan  than  had  been  formerly 
conceived.     Let  us  see  how  the  matter  precisely  stands. 

On  the  general  hypothesis  of  evolution,  as  applied  to  the  EvoluHonpro 
organic  world,  I   have   nothing  to   say,  except  that,  within  ^^^^^—"^^^^^  ^' 

°     ^  '  o  J^  t  >  implies. 

certain  limits,  it  seems  to  me  extremely  probable,  and  sup- 
ported by  a  large  body  of  evidence.  This,  however,  only 
refers  to  the  fact  of  a  genetic  relationship  of  some  kind 
between  the  different  species  of  plants  and  animals,  and  does 
not  affect  the  means  by  which  this  development  may  be 
supposed  to  be  brought  about.  On  this  subject  two  views  Two  views: 
may   be    held.^     The    first    is,   that    evolution    results    {^q^  ^^oiu^ion  as 

development 

development    from    within;    in    which    case,    obviously,    \hQ  from  within, 
argument  from  design  stands  precisely  where  it  did,  except  ^^'^  evohawn 

.  ...  as  result  of 

that   the  sphere  of  its  application  is   enormously  Qx.iQi\&Qdi.  fortuity. 
The  second  view  is,  that  evolution  has  resulted  from  fortuitous  ^^^^^'"'•^^^'  ^f 

,.T.,  .  „  ^         1       '         1      '        latter  vieiv. 

variations,  combined  with  action  ot  natural  selection,  laying 
hold  of  and  preserving  the  variations  that  were  favourable. 
This  is  really,  under  a  veil  of  words,  to  ask  us  to  believe 
that  accident  and  fortuity  have  done  the  w^ork  of  mind. 
But  the  facts  are  not  in  agreement  with  the  hypothesis. 
The  variations  in  organisms  are  not  absolutely  indefinite.     In 

if  they  were  slowly  evolved,  that  evidence  has  been  utterly  and  for  ever 
destroyed." — Organic  Evolution,  p.  13.  On  the  bearings  of  evolution  on 
design,  and  on  the  design  argument  generally  in  its  present  relations  to  science, 
see  Janet's  Final  Causes  (Eng.  trans.);  Stirling's  Philosophy  and  Theology; 
Kennedy's  Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought  (1891) ;  Eow's  Cftristian 
Theism  (1890)  ;  Martineau's  Study  of  Religion  (i.  pp.,  270-333)  ;  Flint's 
Theism;  Mivart's  Lessons  from  Nature;  Conder's  Basis  of  Faith  ;  Murphy's 
Habit  and  Intelligence ;  Ebrard's  Christian  Apologetics,  ii.  pp.  1-56  (Eng. 
trans.);  Argyll's  Reign  of  Law,  etc.  On  Kant's  views  on  evolution  and  on 
final  causes  as  connected  therewith,  cf.  Caird's  Phil,  of  Kant,  ii.  495-499. 
^  See  Note  G. — Schools  of  Evolutionists. 


I20  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

the  evolution  of  an  eye,  for  example,  the  variations  are  all 
more  or  less  in  the  line  of  producing  the  eye.  When  the 
formation  of  an  eye  has  begun,  the  organism  keeps  to  that 
line  in  that  place.  It  does  not  begin  to  sprout  an  ear  where 
the  eye  is  being  developed.  There  is  a  ground  plan  that  is 
adhered  to  in  the  midst  of  the  variations.  Could  we  collect 
the  successive  forms  through  which  the  eye  is  supposed  to 
have  passed  in  the  course  of  its  development,  what  we  would 
see  (I  speak  on  the  hypothesis  of  the  theory)  would  be  a 
succession  of  small  increments  of  structure,  all  tending  in 
the  direction  of  greater  complexity  and  perfection  of  the 
organ — the  appearance  of  new  muscles,  new  lenses,  new 
arrangements  for  adjusting  or  perfecting  the  sight,  etc.  But 
the  mere  fact  that  these  successive  appearances  could  be  put 
in  a  line,  however  extended,  would  throw  no  light  on  how 
the  development  took  place,  or  how  this  marvellously  complex 
organ  came  to  build  itself  up  precisely  after  this  pattern.^ 
The  cause  invoked  to  explain  this  is  natural  selection.  Now 
the  action  of  natural  selection  is  real,  but  its  influence  may 
be  very  easily  overrated.  It  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that 
natural  selection  'produces  nothing.  It  acts  only  on  organisms 
already  produced,  weeding  out  the  weakest,  and  the  least 
fitted  structurally  to  survive,  and  leaving  the  better  adapted 
in  possession  of  the  field.^  It  is  altogether  to  exaggerate  the 
influence  of  natural  selection,  to  attribute  to  it  a  power  to 
pick  out  infallibly  on  their  first  appearance  the  infinitesimal 
variations  in  an  organism  which  are  to  form  the  foundations 
of  future  useful  organs,  though,  in  their  initial  stage,  they 
cannot  be  shown  to  confer  any  benefit  on  their  possessors, 
and  may  be  balanced  or  neutralised  by  fifty  or  sixty  other 
variations  in  an  opposite  direction,  or  by  differences  of  size, 
strength,  speed,  etc.,  on  the  part  of  the  competitors  in  the 
struggle ;  and  still  more  a  power  to  preserve  each  of  these 

^  Cf.  Jevons,  Principles  of  Science,  ii.  p.  462  ;  J.  S.  Mill,  Three  Essays  on 
Religion,  p.  171.  Mill  concludes  that  "the  adaptations  in  Nature  afford  a 
large  balance  of  probability  in  favour  of  creation  by  intelligence." — P.  174. 

^  See  i)assages  in  Note  G. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  121 

slight  variations  till  another  and  yet  another  of  a  favourable 
kind  is  added  to  it  after  long  intervals,  in  a  contest  in  which 
numbers  alone  are  overwhelmingly  against  the  chance  of  its 
survival.^     Taking  the  facts  of  evolution  as  they  really  stand,  What  the  facts 
what  they  seem  to   point   to  is   something  like  the   follow- ^ .  J^  ^' ^^" 


point  to. 


i.  An  inner  power  of  development  of  organisms. 

ii.  A  power  of  adjustment  in  organisms  adapting  them  to 
environment. 

iii.  A  weeding  out  of  weak  and  unfit  organisms  by  natural 
selection. 

iv.  Great  differences  in  the  rate  of  production  of  new 
species.  Ordinarily,  species  seem  to  have  nearly  all  the 
characters  of  fixity  which  the  old  view  ascribed  to  them. 
Variation  exists,  but  it  is  confined  within  comparatively 
narrow  limits.  The  type  persists  through  ages  practically 
unchanged.  At  other  periods  in  the  geological  history  of  the 
past  there  seems  to  have  been  a  breaking  down  of  this  fixity. 
The  history  of  life  is  marked  by  a  great  inrush  of  new  forms. 
New  species  crowd  upon  the  scene.  Plasticity  seems  the 
order  of  the  day.^  We  may  call  this  evolution  if  we  like, 
but  it  is  none  the  less  creation, — the  production  out  of  the 
old  of  something   new  and  higher.     All   that  we  are  called 

^  Mr.  Spencer  shows  that  Natural  Selection  fails  as  an  explanation  in  pro- 
portion as  life  grows  complex.  "As  fast,"  he  says,  "as  the  faculties  are 
multiplied,  so  fast  does  it  become  possible  for  the  several  members  of  a  species 
to  have  various  kinds  of  superiority  over  one  another.  While  one  saves  its  life 
by  higher  speed,  another  does  the  like  by  clearer  vision,  another  by  keener 
scent,  another  by  quicker  hearing,  another  by  greater  strength,  another  by 
unusual  power  of  enduring  cold  and  hunger,  another  by  special  sagacity, 
another  by  special  timidity,  another  by  special  courage,  and  others  by  other 
bodily  and  mental  attributes.  Now  it  is  unquestionably  true  that,  other  things 
being  equal,  each  of  these  attributes  giving  its  possessor  an  extra  chance  of  life, 
is  likely  to  be  transmitted  to  posterity.  But  there  seems  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  it  will  be  increased  in  subsequent  generations  by  natural  selection  .  .  . 
If  those  members  of  the  species  which  have  but  ordinary  shares  of  it  nevertheless 
survive  by  virtue  of  other  superiorities  which  they  severally  possess,  then  it  is 
not  easy  to  see  how  this  particular  attribute  can  be  developed  by  natural 
selection  in  subsequent  generations,"  etc. — Principles  of  Biology,  sec.  166.  Cf. 
Alfred  W.  Bennett  in  Martineau's  Study  of  Religion,  i.  280-282. 

2  Cf.  Dawson,  Modern  Ideas  of  Evolution,  pp.  106,  107  ;  The  Chain  of  Life 


THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 


The  design 
argument  too 
narro7v. 
Wider  argu- 
ment from 
order,  plan, 
law,  etc. 


upon  to  notice  here  is  that  it  in  no  way  conflicts  with  design, 
but  rather  compels  the  acknowledgment  of  it. 

The  chief  criticism  I  would  be  disposed  to  make  upon  the 
design  argument,  as  an  argument  for  intelligence  in  the  cause 
of  the  universCi  is  that  it  is  too  narrow.  It  confines  the 
argument  to  final  causes — that  is,  to  the  particular  case  of 
the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  But  the  basis  for  the 
inference  that  the  universe  has  a  wise  and  intelligent  Author 
is  far  wider  than  this.  It  is  not  the  marks  of  purpose 
alone  which  necessitate  this  inference,  but  everything 
which  bespeaks  order,  plan,  arrangement,  harmony,  beauty, 
rationality  in  the  connection  and  system  of  things.  It  is 
the  proof  of  the  presence  of  tlioiiglit  in  the  world — whatever 
shape  that  may  take.^  As  we  saw  in  a  former  part  of  the 
Lecture,  the  assumption  on  which  the  whole  of  science  pro- 
ceeds— and  cannot  but  proceed — in  its  investigations,  is,  that 
the  system  it  is  studying  is  intelligible, — that  there  is  an 
intelligible  unity  of  things.  It  admits  of  being  reduced  to 
terms  of  thought.  There  is  a  settled  and  established  order 
on  which  the  investigator  can  depend.  Without  this  he 
could  not  advance  one  step.  Even  Kant's  objection  that  this 
argument  proved  only  an  architect  of  the  universe,  but  not  a 
creator  of  its  materials,  is  seen  from  this  point  of  view  to  be 

in  Geol.  Time,  p.  229.  "  The  progress  of  life," he  says,  "in  geological  time  has 
not  been  uniform  or  uninterrupted.  .  .  .  Evolutionists  themselves,  those  at 
least  who  are  willing  to  allow  their  theory  to  be  at  all  modified  by  facts,  now 
perceive  this  ;  and  hence  we  have  the  doctrine  advanced  by  Mivart,  Le  Comte, 
and  others,  of  'critical  periods,'  or  periods  of  rapid  evolution  alternating  with 
others  of  greater  quiescence." — Mod.  Ideas,  pp.  106,  107.  See  in  both  works 
the  examples  given  of  this  "  apparition  of  s))ecies." 

^  Principal  Shairp  says  :  *'  To  begin  with  the  outward  world,  there  is,  I  shall 
not  say  so  much  the  mark  of  design  on  all  outward  things  as  an  experience 
forced  in  upon  the  mind  of  the  thoughtful  naturalist  that,  penetrate  into 
nature  wherever  he  may,  thought  has  been  there  before  him ;  that,  to  quote 
the  words  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished,  *  there  is  really  a  plan,  which  may 
be  read  in  the  relations  which  you  and  I,  and  all  living  beings  scattered  over 
the  surface  of  our  earth,  hold  to  each  other. '  " — Studies  in  Poetry  and  Philosophy, 
p.  367.  Cf.  also  on  this  aspect  of  the  subject,  M'Cosh,  Method  of  Divine 
Government,  \)^.  75-151;  and  on  the  argument  from  Beauty  and  Sublimity  in 
Nature,  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought,  Lecture  IV. 
(Donnellan  Lectures). 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  123 

.invalid.^  The  very  materials  of  the  universe — the  atoms 
which  compose  it — show  by  their  structure,  their  uniformity, 
their  properties,  their  mathematical  relations,  that  they  must 
have  a  Creator ;  that  the  Power  which  originated  them,  which 
weighed,  measured,  and  numbered  them,  which  stamped  on 
them  their  common  characters,  and  gave  them  their  definite 
laws  and  relations,  must  have  been  intelligent.  I  admit, 
however,  that  as  the  design  argument  presupposes  the  cosmo- 
logical,  to  give  us  the  idea  of  an  infinite  and  necessary  Being 
at  the  basis  of  the  universe,  so  both  of  these  arguments  need 
the  ontological,  to  show  us  in  the  clearest  and  most  con- 
vincing manner  that  this  Being  and  Cause  of  the  universe  is 
infinite,  self-conscious  Eeason. 

(3)  I  come,  accordingly,  in  the  third  place,  to  the  onto-  (3)  The  onto- 
logical   argument — that    which   Kant,  not    without    reason,  ^-^^^^f  ^^''^"' 

^  ^  '  '  ?nent. 

affirms  to  be  at  the  foundation  of  the  other  two,  and  to  be 
the  real  ground  on  which  the  inference  to  the  existence  of  a 
necessary  and  infinitely  perfect  Being  rests.     It  is  an  argu- 
ment which  in  these  days,  owing  largely  to  his  criticism  upon 
it,  has  fallen  much  into  disrepute,  though  a  good  deal  has 
also   been   done  by   able   thinkers  to  rehabilitate  it,  and  to  The  Anseimk 
show  its  real  bearings.     It  must  further  be  admitted  that  \xiJ'Z"^\^^^'^ 
the  form   in   which  it  was  wont   to  be  put  in  the  schools,  criticism  upon 
the  strictures  which  Kant  makes  on  it  are  in  the  main  just.-  ^^* 
In  the  earlier  form,  it  is  an  argument  from  the  idea  of  God 
as  a  necessary  idea  of   the  mind,  to  His  real  existence.     I 
have,  reasons  Anselm,  the  idea  of  a  most  perfect  Being.      But 
this  idea  includes   the   attribute   of   existence.      For  if   the 
most  perfect  Being  did  not  exist,  there  could  be  conceived  a 
greater  than  He, — one  that  did  exist, — and  therefore  He  would 


^  Cf.  Lecture  IV.  on  Creation.  It  maybe  asked,  besides,  if  it  is  so  certain,  as 
Kant  assumes,  that  only  a  finite  power  is  needed  to  create — I  do  not  say  a 
universe,  but  even  an  atom  ;  whether  there  are  not  finite  eff"ects,  such  as  crea- 
tion, to  which  only  Omnipotence  is  competent  ?  The  point  is  not  that  it  is  an 
atom,  but  that  it  is  created. 

2  Krxtik,  pp.  417-424  (Eng.  trans,  pp.  364-370).  See  Note  H.— Kant  on  the 
Ontological  Argument. 


124  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

not  be  the  most  perfect.  The  most  perfect  Being,  therefore, 
is  one  in  the  idea  of  whom  existence  is  necessarily  included. 
In  this  form  the  argument  seems  little  better  than  a  logical 
quibble,  and  so  Kant  has  treated  it.  Kant  grants  the 
necessity  of  the  idea — shows  how  it  arises — names  it  Tim 
Ideal  of  Pure  Reason — but  argues  with  cogency  that  from 
an  idea,  purely  as  such,  you  cannot  conclude  to  real  existence. 
It  would  be  strange,  however,  if  an  argument  which  has 
wielded  such  power  over  some  of  the  strongest  intellects 
were  utterly  baseless;  and  Dr.  Hutchison  Stirling  has  well 
shown  that  when  we  get  to  the  kernel  of  Anselm's  thought, 
as  he  himself  explains  it,  it  has  by  no  means  the  irrational 
character  which  might  at  first  sight  appear  to  belong  to  it.^ 
Anselm's  form  of  the  argument,  however,  it  must  now  be 
observed,  is  neither  the  final  nor  tlie  perfect  one.  Kant 
himself  has  given  the  impulse  to  a  new  development  of  it, 
which  shows  more  clearly  than  ever  that  it  is-  not  baseless, 
but  is  really  the  deepest  and  most  comprehensive  of  all 
arguments — the  argument  implied  in  both  of  the  two  pre- 
ceding. 
New  form  of  The  kernel  of  the  ontological  argument,  as  we  find  it  put, 
this  argument  f^^.  example,  by  Prof.  Green,  is  the  assertion  that  thought 

—thought  the    ,  ^  , 

necessary  ^xm%\.^  the  necessary  ^rms  of  all  that  is — even  of  all  possible  or 
of  existence,  conceivable  existence.  This  assertion  is  not  arrived  at  in 
any  o.  'priori  way,  but  by  the  strict  and  sober  analysis  of 
what  is  involved  in  such  knowledge  of  existence  as  we  have. 
If  we  analyse  the  act  of  knowledge,  we  find  that  in  every 
form  of  it  there  are  implied  certain  necessary  and  universal 
conditions,  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be 
conditions  of  experience  also,  otherwise  it  could  never  be 
experience  for  us  at  all.  Thus,  any  world  we  are  capable 
of  knowing  with  our  present  faculties  must  be  a  world  in 
space  and  time, — a  world  subject  to  conditions  of  number 
and  quantity, — a  world  apprehended  in  relations  of  substance 
and  accident,  cause  and  effect,  etc.     A  world  of  any  other 

1  Phil,  and  Theol  pp.  182-193. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  125 

kind — supposing  it  to  exist — would  be  in  relation  to  our 
thought  or  knowledge,  unthinkable.  These  conditions  of 
knowledge,  moreover,  are  not  arbitrary  and  contingent,  but 
universal  and  necessary.  They  spring  from  reason  itself,  and 
express  its  essential  and  immutable  nature.  Thus  we  feel 
sure  that  there  is  no  world  in  space  or  time  to  which  the 
laws  of  mathematics  do  not  apply;  no  world  possible  in 
which  events  do  not  follow  each  other  according  to  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect ;  no  world  in  which  the  fundamental  laws 
of  thought  and  reasoning  are  different  from  what  they  are  in 
our  own.  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  indeed,  thought  there  might  be 
worlds  in  which  two  and  two  do  not  make  four ;  or  in  which 
events  succeed  each  other  without  any  causal  relation.  But 
in  this  he  will  get  few  to  agree  with  him.  In  like  manner, 
there  are  moral  principles  which  our  reason  recognises  as 
universally  and  unconditionally  valid.  We  cannot  conceive 
of  a  world  in  which  falsehood  would  really  be  a  virtue,  and 
truth-speaking  a  vice.  We  hold  it,  therefore,  for  certain 
that  reason  is  the  source  of  universal  and  necessary  principles 
which  spring  from  its  essence,  and  which  are  the  conditions 
of  all  possible  knowledge.  But  this,  its  own  essential  nature, 
reason  finds  reflected  back  from  the  world  around  it.  A 
world  does  exist,  constituted  through  these  very  principles 
which  we  find  within  ourselves, — in  space  and  time,  through 
number  and  quantity,  substance  and  quantity,  cause  and 
effect,  etc., — and  therefore  knowable  by  us,  and  capable  of 
becoming  an  object  of  our  experience.  We  arrive,  therefore, 
at  this — that  the  world  is  constituted  through  a  reason 
similar  to  our  own ;  that,  in  Mr.  Green's  words,  "  the  under- 
standing which  presents  an  order  of  nature  to  us  is  in 
principle  one  with  an  understanding  which  constitutes  that 
order  itself."^  And  that  such  a  reason  not  only  does  but 
must  exist,  I  see  not  simply  by  inference  from  the  exist- 
ence of  the  world,  which  is  the  higher  form  of  the  cosmo- 
logical  argument,  but  by  reflection  on  the  necessary  character 

1  Prol.  to  Ethics,  p.  23. 


Realism 


126  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

of  the  principles  of  reason  themselves.  For  whence  these 
laws  of  thought — these  universal  and  necessary  conditions 
of  all  truth  and  knowledge — which  I  discover  in  myself; 
which  my  own  reason  neither  makes  nor  can  unmake ; 
which  I  recognise  to  be  in  me  and  yet  not  of  me ;  which  I 
know  must  belong  to  every  rational  being  in  every  part  of 
the  universe  ?  They  are  necessary  and  eternal  in  their 
nature,  yet  they  have  not  the  ground  of  their  existence  in  my 
individual  mind.  Can  I  conclude  otherwise  than  that  they 
have  their  seat  and  ground  in  an  eternal  and  absolute  Eeason 
— the  absolute  Priiis  of  all  that  is,  at  once  of  thought  and  of 
existence  ?  It  is  but  a  further  extension  of  the  same  argu- 
ment when  I  proceed  to  show  that  thought  is  only  possible 
in  relation  to  an  I,  to  a  central  principle  of  self-conscious- 
ness, which  unifies  and  connects  all  thinking  and  experience. 
Rational  This  argument,  which  has  been  called  that  of  "  Eational 

Eealism,"  is  one  which  in  varied  forms  has  been  accepted 
by  the  deepest  thinkers,  and  finds  widespread  acknowledg- 
ment in  literature.^  It  is  not  liable  to  the  objection  made 
to  the  Anselmic  form,  of  involving  an  illicit  inference  from 
mere  idea  to  real  existence ;  but  it  has  this  in  common  with 
it  that  the  existence  of  an  Eternal  Eeason  is  shown  to  be 
involved  in  the  very  thinking  of  this,  or  indeed  of  any 
thought.  In  the  very  act  of  thinking,  thought  affirms  its 
own  existence.  But  thought  can  perceive,  not  only  its 
own  existence,  but  the  necessity  of  its  existence  —  the 
necessity  of  its  existence,  even,  as  the  'prius  of  everything 
else.  What  is  affirmed,  therefore,  is  not  simply  my 
thought,  but  an  Absolute  Thought,  and  with  this  the  ex- 
istence of  an  Absolute  Thinker ;  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Harris, 
who  has  done  much  to  give  popular  expression  to  this 
argument,  of  "an  Absolute  Eeason  energising  in  perfect 
wisdom  and  love "  in  the  universe.^  I  cannot  but  maintain, 
therefore,  that  the  ontological  argument,  in  the  kernel  and 

^  See  Note  I. — Rational  Realism. 

2  The  Phil.  Basis  of  Theism,  p.  3  ;  cf.  pp.  82,  143,  560,  etc. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  127 

essence  of  it,  is  a  sound  one,  and  that  in  it  the  existence  of 
God  is  really  seen  to  be  the  first,  the  most  certain,  and  the 
most  indisputable  of  all  truths. 

We  saw   in   connection   with   the   cosmological   argument  The  religious 
that  there  was  a   direct  fact  of  consciousness  which  turned  ^■^P^^^^<^^  ^(>^- 

.  .  responding  to 

the  logical  argument  mto  a  real  one, — which  translated,  if  I  the  tehologicai 
may  so   speak,   the   abstract   proof  into  a  living  experience.  ^'^^  ^'^^^" 
It  is  worth  our  while  to  inquire,  before  leaving  these  theoretic  merits— tie  ' 
proofs,   whether  there  is  anything  of  the  same  kind  here ;  i^^mediate 

,  1  .  .  ,       1         T    •  .  1.1  sense  of  ^^  the 

anything  m  actual  religious  consciousness  which  answers  to  EtenmiPower 
that  demonstration  of  a  rational  element  in  the  world  which  and  Divinity' 
is  given  in  the  two  remaining  arguments.  I  think  there  is.  ^  ^^  reator. 
I  refer  to  that  very  real  perception  which  mankind  have  at 
all  times  manifested  of  a  spiritual  presence  and  power  in 
nature,  which  is  the  effect  of  the  total  unanalysed  impression 
which  nature  in  its  infinite  variety  and  complexity,  its 
wondrous  grandeur,  order,  beauty,  and  fulness  of  life  and 
power,  makes  upon  the  soul.  The  more  carefully  facts  have 
been  examined,  the  more  narrowly  the  history  of  religions 
has  been  scrutinised,  the  clearer  has  it  become  that  under- 
lying all  the  particular  ideas  men  have  of  their  deities, — 
underlying  their  particular  acts  of  worship  to  them, — there 
is  always  this  sense  of  something  mysterious,  intangible, 
infinite, — of  an  all-pervading  supernatural  Presence  and 
Power, — which  is  not  identified  with  any  of  the  particular 
phenomena  of  nature,  but  is  regarded  rather  as  manifested 
through  them.^  It  is  this  which  Paul  speaks  of  when  he 
says  that  "the  Eternal  Power  and  Divinity"  of  God  are 
manifested  since  the  creation  of  the  world  in  the  things  that 

^  This  is  true  of  the  lowest  as  well  as  of  the  highest  religions,— cf.  Waitz  on 
The,  Religion  of  the  Hegroes,  in  Max  Miiller's  Hibbert  Lectures,  pjo.  106-107,— 
but  is  much  more  conspicuous  in  the  oldest  forms  of  natural  religion,  e.g.  in 
the  Vedic,  Babylonian,  and  Egyptian  religions.  On  the  general  facts,  cf.  Max 
Miiller's  works,  Reville's  Hist,  of  Religions,  Sayce's  Hibbert  Lectures  on  The 
lieligion  of  the  Ancient  Babylonians,  Renouf's  Hibbert  Lectures  on  The  Religion 
of  Ancient  Egypt,  Fairbairn's  Studies,  Loring  Brace's  The  Unknown  God, 
Pressense's  The  Ancient  World  and  Christianity  (Eng.  trans.),  etc.,  and  see 
Note  F.  to  Lecture  V. 


128 


THE  THE  I  STIC  POSTULATE 


How  is  this 
sense  of  the 
Divine  to  be 
explained  ? 


are  raade.^  It  is  Max  Mliller's  "  perception  of  the  infinite,"' 
Schleiermacher's  "consciousness  of  the  infinite  in  the  finite," 
the  seiisus  numinis  of  the  older  writers,  Wordsworth's  "  sense 
of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused  " — 

"  Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man."  ^ 

Such  a  sense  or  perception  of  the  Divine  is  the  common 
substratum  of  all  religions,  and  the  theory  of  religion  which 
fails  to  take  account  of  it  is  like  the  play  of  Hamlet  with 
Hamlet  left  out. 

But  how  is  this  sense  of  the  Divine  in  nature — which  is 
the  stronghold  of  the  theology  of  feeling — to  be  accounted 
for  ?  It  is  certainly  not  the  result  of  logical  argument,  and 
goes  beyond  anything  that  logical  argument  could  yield. 
Yet  it  may  easily  be  shown  that  rational  elements  are 
implicit  in  it,  and  that  the  rational  elements  involved  are 
precisely  those  which  the  foregoing  arguments  have  sought 
explicitly  to  unfold.  To  understand  the  impression  of  the 
Divine  which  nature  makes  on  man,  we  have  to  remember 
how  much  the  mind  of  man  has  already  to  do  with  nature. 
We  have  to  do  here  with  nature,  not  primarily  as  an 
objectively  existing  system  of  laws  and  forces,  but  as  it 
exists  for  man  as  an  object  of  actual  knowledge  and 
experience.  And  how  has  it  come  to  be  this  to  him  ? 
Not  without  help  from  the  thinking  mind  which  collates 
and  connects  the  separate  impressions  made  on  it  through 
the  senses,  and  gradually  reads  the  riddle  of  the  universe 
by  the  help  of  what  it  brings  to  it  out  of  its  own  resources. 
We  speak  of  the  immaturity  of  the  savage  mind,  but  there 
is  an  intense  mental  activity  in  the  simplest  conception  which 
the  savage  (or  the  child)  can  form  of  the  existence  of  nature, 
or  of  a  world  around  him.  He  sees  changes,  but  he  finds 
the  interpretation  of  these  changes  in  the  idea  of  causality 
which    he    brings    to    it    from  his  own   mind.      He   groups 

1  Rom.  i.  20.  2  Wordsworth's  Tintern  Abbey. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW.  129 

attributes  and  forms  objects,  but  he  does  this  through  the 
mental  law  of  substance  and  accident.  He  perceives  the 
operation  of  vast  forces  in  nature,  but  whence  does  he  get 
the  idea  of  force  ?  He  gets  it  from  the  consciousness  of 
power  within  himself,  and  through  this  puts  meaning  into 
the  scene  of  change  and  movement  which  he  finds  around 
him.  Is  it  wonderful,  then,  that  man,  who  has  put  so  much 
of  himself  into  nature,  even  when  constructing  it  as  an  object 
of  thought,  should  again  receive  back  the  reflection  of  his 
own  spiritual  image  from  nature — receive  it  back  on  a 
grander,  vastly  enhanced  scale,  proportionate  to  the  great- 
ness and  immensity  of  the  universe  on  which  he  looks,  and 
should  be  filled  with  awe  and  reverence  in  presence  of  this 
Other- Self,  and  Higher-than-Self,  as  that  of  a  Eeason,  Power, 
and  Will  essentially  akin  to  his  own,  though  infinitely  greater  ? 
Eeason  does  not  create  this  sense  of  the  Divine ;  it  can  only 
follow  in  its  train,  and  seek  to  lay  bare  and  analyse — as  is 
done  in  the  theoretic  proofs — the  rational  elements  which  it 
involves. 

III.  There  remains  the  moral  argument,  which  deserves  a  III.  The 
place   by  itself,  and  which  I  must  briefly  consider   before  I  ^''^^^  ^^£^\, 

,  .  inent.    Kant  s 

close.  The  theoretic  proofs,  as  Kant  rightly  said,  can  ^n^  statement  of  it. 
us  no  knowledge  of  God  as  a  moral  Being — as  a  Being  who 
sets  before  Him  moral  ends,  and  governs  the  world  with 
reference  to  these  ends.  For  this  we  are  dependent  on  the 
Practical  Eeason,  which  shows  us  not  what  is,  but  what 
ought  to  he,  and  is  the  source  of  laws  of  moral  conduct  which 
we  recognise  as  of  binding  force  for  every  rational  agent. 
The  way  in  which  Kant  works  out  his  argument  from  this 
point  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  parts  of  his  system. 
Nature  in  itself,  he  thinks,  knows  nothing  of  a  highest  end. 
This  is  given  only  in  the  Practical  Eeason,  which  sets  before 
us  ends  of  unconditioned  worth,  and  requires  us,  if  our  view 
of  the  world  is  to  be  consistent,  to  regard  these  as  supreme, 
i.e.  to  view  the  world  as  a  moral  system,  in  which   natural 

9 


130 


THE   THEISTIC  POSTULATE 


God  a  pos- 
tulate of  the 
Practical 
Reason, 


ends  are  everywhere  subordinated  to  moral.  But  such  a 
moral  teleology  is  only  possible  if  there  is  one  principle  of 
the  natural  and  of  the  moral  order,  and  if  nature  is  so 
arranged  as  to  secure  a  final  harmony  of  natural  and  moral 
conditions ;  in  other  words,  if  the  world  has  a  moral  as  well 
as  an  intelligent  cause.  God,  therefore,  is  a  postulate  of  the 
Practical  Eeason.^  I  quote  in  further  illustration  of  this 
argument,  Professor  Caird's  fuller  statement  of  it,  in  his 
excellent  exposition  of  the  Critique  of  Judgment,  in  which  he 
follows  Kant.  "  The  principle  of  moral  determination  in 
man,"  he  says,  "  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  a  highest  end, 
after  which  he  should  strive ;  in  other  words,  the  idea  of  a 
system  in  which  all  rational  beings  realise  their  happiness 
tliroiigh  their  moral  perfection,  and  in  proportion  to  it.  But 
such  realisation  of  happiness  through  morality,  is  no  natural 
sequence  of  effect  on  cause ;  for  there  is  nothing  in  the  con- 
nection of  physical  causes  that  has  any  relation  to  such  an 
end.  We  are  forced,  therefore,  by  the  same  moral  necessity 
which  makes  us  set  before  us  such  an  end,  to  postulate 
outside  of  nature  a  cause  that  determines  nature,  so  as  finally 
to  secure  this  result ;  and  from  this  follows  necessarily  the 
idea  of  an  all-wise,  all-powerful,  all-righteous,  all-merciful 
God.  We  have  a  '  pure  moral  need '  for  the  existence  of 
such  a  Being ;  and  our  moral  needs  differ  from  physical 
needs  in  that  they  have  an  absolute  claim  to  satisfaction.  .  .  . 
Furthermore,  we  are  to  remember  that  the  principle  which 
leads  us  to  postulate  God  is  a  practical  principle,  which  does 
not  give  us,  strictly  speakiug,  a  knowledge  of  God,  but  only 
of  a  special  relation  in  which  he  stands  to  us  and  to  nature ; 
while,  therefore,  in  order  to  find  in  God  the  principle  which 
realises  the  highest  good,  we  are  obliged  to  represent  Him  as 
a  rational  Being,  who  is  guided  by  the  idea  of  an  end,  and 
who   uses  nature  as  means  to  it,  we  are  to  remember  that 

1  Cf.  Kritik  d.  r.  Vernunft,  pp.  548-557,  on  "  The  Ideal  of  the  Highest 
Good  as  a  Determining  Ground  of  the  last  end  of  Pure  Reason  "  (Eng.  trans, 
pp.  487-496) ;  and  the  Kritik  d.  praktischen  Vernunft,  Part  II.  5— "The  Being 
of  God  as  a  Postulate  of  the  Pure  Practical  Reason." 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  131 

this  conception  is  based  on  an  imperfect  analogy.  .  .  ,  'AH 
that  we  can  say  is  that,  consistently  with  the  nature  of  our  ~    ' 

intelligence,  we  cannot  make  intelligible  to  ourselves  the 
possibility  of  such  an  adaptation  of  nature  to  the  moral 
law  and  its  object  as  is  involved  in  the  final  end  which  the 
moral  law  commands  us  to  aim  at,  except  by  assuming  the 
existence  of  a  Creator  and  Governor  of  the  world,  who  is  also 
its  moral  Legislator.'  "  ^ 

It  is  to  this  view  of  God  as  a  postulate  of  the  Practical  Moral  law, 
Eeason,   and   as   satisfying   a  "  pure   moral  need,"   that   the  ^.^7^^?'^' 
Eitschlian  theology  specially  attaches  itself ;  but  it  must  be  ethical  ideal, 
remarked  that  such  an  origin  of  the  idea  of  God,  abstracted  ^^'"''^'^^'^/'' 

"  an  eternal 

from  direct  experience  of  dependence  on  Him,  would  furnish  ground. 
no  adequate  explanation  of  the  religious  relation.  We  may, 
however,  accept  all  that  Kant  says  of  God  as  a  postulate  of 
the  moral  consciousness,  and  yet  carry  the  argument  a  good 
deal  further  than  he  does.  God  is  not  only  a  postulate  of  the 
moral  nature  in  the  sense  that  His  existence  is  necessary  to 
secure  the  final  harmony  of  natural  and  moral  conditions, 
but  it  may  be  held  that  His  existence  is  implied  in  the  very 
presence  of  a  morally  legislating  and  commanding  Eeason 
within  us, — ^just  as  an  eternal  self-conscious  Eeason  was  seen 
to  be  implied  in  the  universal  and  necessary  principles  of  the 
theoretic  consciousness.  That  moral  law  which  appears  in 
conscience — the  "  categorical  imperative  "  of  duty  for  which 
Kant  himself  has  done  so  much  to  intensify  our  reverence — 
that  ideal  of  unrealised  goodness  which  hovers  constantly 
above  us,  awakening  in  us  a  noble  dissatisfaction  with  all 
past  attainments, — these  are  not  facts  which  explain  them- 
selves. Nor  are  they  sufficiently  explained  as  products  of 
association  and  of  social  convention.  Moral  law  is  not  com- 
prehensible except  as  the  expression  of  a  will  entitled  to 
impose  its  commands  upon  us.  The  rules  and  ideals  of 
conduct  which  conscience  reveals  to  us,  and  which  bind  the 
will  with   such   unconditional   authority,   point   to  a   deeper 

^  Philosophy  of  Kant,  ii.  pp.  504,  505. 


132  THE  THEISTIC  POSTULATE 

source  in  an  eternal  moral  Reason.  The  ethical  ideal,  if  its 
absolute  character  is  to  be  secured,  points  back  to  an  eternal 
ground  in  the  Absolute  Being.  It  takes  us  back  to  the  same 
conception  of  God  as  the  ethically  perfect  Being,  source  and 
ground  of  moral  truth,  fountain  of  moral  law,  which  we  found 
to  be  implied  in  Christianity.^ 
Religious  ex-  And  let  me  observe,  finally,  that  here  also  we  have  more 
tertencecor-     ^j^g^^^   logical   argument — we   have  experience.       The    moral 

responding  to  ^      ^  ^ 

the  moral        consciousucss  is  One  of  the  most  powerful  direct  sources  of 
proof.  man's  knowledge  of  God.     In  the  earliest  stages  in  which  we 

know  anything  about  man,  a  moral  element  blends  with  his 
thought.  There  grows  up  within  him, — he  knows  not  how, — 
a  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  of  a  law  making  its  presence 
felt  in  his  life,  prescribing  to  him  moral  duties,  and  speaking 
to  him  with  a  "  thou  shalt "  and  "  thou  shalt  not "  in  his  soul 
which  he  dare  not  disregard.  His  thoughts,  meanwhile, 
accuse  or  else  excuse  each  other.  This  law,  moreover, 
presents  itself  to  him  as  something  more  than  a  mere  idea 
of  his  own  mind.  It  is  a  real  judging  power  in  his  soul, 
an  arbiter  invested  with  legislative,  but  also  with  judicial 
functions.  It  has  accordingly  from  the  first  a  sacred 
character.  It  is  a  power  not  himself  making  for  righteous- 
ness within  him.  He  instinctively  connects  it  with  the 
Power  he  worships,  whose  existence  is  borne  in  on  him  from 
other  sources.  As  conscience  develops,  his  duties  come  to 
be  more  invested  with  a  moral  character,  and  are  feared, 
honoured,  or  propitiated  accordingly.  It  is  the  moral  con- 
sciousness particularly  which  safeguards  the  personality  of 
God — the  Divine  tending  to  sink  back  into  identity  with 
nature  in  proportion  as  the  ethical  idea  is  obscured. 
Conclusion,  The    conclusion    we    reach    from    the    various    arguments 

and   considerations    advanced    in   this    Lecture    is,  that    the 
Christian  view  of  a  personal  and  holy  God,  as  the  Author 

^  Cf.  on  the  moral  argument,  Conder's  Banis  of  Faith,  pp.  383-431  ;  Mar- 
tineau's  Study  of  Religion,  ii.  pp.  1-42  ;  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology  and 
Modern  Thought,  Lecture  VI.,  "Kant  and  the  Moral  Proof";  and  M 'Cosh's 
Divine  Government,  Book  i.  chap.  3. 


OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW,  133 

of  the  universe,  and  its  moral  Legislator  and  Euler,  is  the 
only  one  in  which  the  reason  and  the  heart  of  man  can 
permanently  rest.  I  do  not  say  that  reason  could  have 
reached  the  height  of  the  Christian  conception  for  itself; 
I  do  not  even  think  it  can  hold  to  it  unless  it  accepts  the 
fact  of  Eevelation  and  the  other  truths  which  Christianity 
associates  with  it.  But  I  do  say  that,  with  this  view  as 
given,  reason  is  able  to  bring  to  it  abundant  corroboration 
and  verification.  It  is  not  one  line  of  evidence  only  which 
establishes  the  theistic  position,  but  the  concurrent  force  of 
many,  starting  from  different  and  independent  standpoints. 
And  the  voice  of  reason  is  confirmed  by  the  soul's  direct 
experiences  in  religion.  At  the  very  least  these  considera- 
tions show — even  if  the  force  of  demonstration  is  denied  to 
them — that  the  Christian  view  of  God  is  not  w^ireasonable ; 
that  it  is  in  accordance  with  the  highest  suggestions  of  reason 
applied  to  the  facts  of  existence ;  that  there  is  no  bar  in 
rational  thought  or  in  science  to  its  full  acceptance.  And 
this  is  all  that  at  present  we  need  ask. 


APPENDIX    TO    LECTUEE    III. 

GOD  AS  EELIGIOUS  POSTULATE. 

Godasapos-  If  wg  are  to  speak  of  God  as  a  postulate  of  the  soul,  we 
J!T  "^^^^  ^^"^^  ^P^^^  ^^  -^^^  ^^  ^  postulate  for  the  wlioU  need  of  the 
soul — for  its  religious  and  its  rational,  not  less  than  for  its 
moral  need.  We  must  speak  of  Him  also  in  such  a  way  as 
to  show  that  this  postulate  is  not  an  arbitrary  one,  but 
springs  necessarily  from  the  soul's  rational  and  moral  con- 
stitution, and  so  as  to  explain  the  conviction  of  its  truth 
by  which  it  is  accompanied.  But  this  can  only  be  done 
by  showing  that  there  are  laws  of  man's  spiritual  nature 
which  imperatively  demand  such  and  such  an  object, 
and  by  making  it  clear  what  these  are.  In  like  manner 
What  is  I  would  lay  it   down  as   a    first    principle,   as    against    all 

demanded  in  a  psychological  and  empirical  theories  of  religion,  which  pro- 
reiigion,  posc  to  account  for  mcn's  religious  ideas  and  beliefs  from 
natural  causes  (hopes  and  fears,  animism,  ghosts,  etc.), 
without  raising  the  question  of  how  far  they  correspond  with 
any  outward  reality,  that  no  theory  of  religion  can  be 
adequate  which  does  not  cast  light  on  the  deepest  ground  of 
the  soul's  movement  towards  God,  and  on  the  nature  of  the 
object  which  alone  can  adequately  satisfy  it.  This  again 
assumes  that  there  are  laws  of  the  spiritual  nature  which 
determine  beforehand  what  the  character  of  the  object 
must  be  which  alone  can  satisfy  the  religious  necessity, 
and  which  impel  the  soul  unceasingly  to  a  search  after  that 
object.  This,  however,  is  precisely  what  I  consider  the 
truth  about  religion  to  be,  as  a  survey  of  its  manifestations 


bersonal^ 
iemands  a 
bersonal  object. 


GOD  AS  RELIGIOUS  POSTULATE.  135 

in    history    reveals    its   nature   to   us.     Eeligion   is   not    an 

arbitrary  product  of  the  soul.    Even  in  the  lowest  and  poorest 

religions,  we  see  something  struggling  into  consciousness, — a 

want,   a    desire,  a    need, — which    is    not   measured   by  the 

extent  of  its  actual  knowledge  of  the  Divine.     Eeligion  vfQiDeftnifion  of 

might  define  from  this  point   of  view  as  the  search  of  thef ^  ^^^'^'^^ 

soul  for  an   adequate  spiritual   object  to   rest  in,  combined 

with  the  consciousness  that  there  is  such  an  object,  and  with 

the  impulse  to  seek  after  it,  and  when  found,  to  surrender 

itself  to  it.     Now  what  kind  of  object  is  it  which  the  soul 

thus  demands  ?     This  can  only  be  determined  by  the  study 

of  its  laws,  as  these  spring  from  its  essential  nature,  and  are 

exhibited  on   the   field   of  historical  religion.     And  here,  I 

think,  we  are  warranted  to  say — 

1.  That  the  soul,  as  itself  personal,  demands  for  the  satis-  i.  The  soul,  as 
faction  of  its  religious  need,  a  personal  object.  From  what- 
ever sources  it  derives  its  idea  of  the  Divine  (sense  of 
dependence,  outward  impressions  of  nature,  moral  conscious- 
ness), it  invariably  personalises  it.  Over  against  its  I,  it 
seeks  a  Thou,  and  will  rest  satisfied  with  nothing  less. 

2.  That  the  soul,  as  thinking  spirit,  demands  an  infinite  2.  The  soul, 
object.       This   is    a    proposition    of    some    importance,   and  ^^ ^^y^^J*^s 
requires    more    careful    consideration.       We    cannot    err    in  mands  an 
seeking  with  Hegel  the  deepest  ground  of  man's  capacity  for  ^^fi^^^^  °^J^^^' 
religion    in    his  possession  of   the   power   of  thought.     The 

power  of  thought  is  not  the  whole  of  religion,  but  it  is  that 
which  gives  man  his  capacity  for  religion.  The  lower  animals 
are  irrational,  and  they  have  no  religion.  Thought,  in  this 
connection,  may  be  described  as  the  universalising  principle 
in  human  nature.  It  is  that  which  leads  us  to  negate  the 
limits  of  the  finite.  It  is  that  which  impels  man  from  fact 
to  principle,  from  law  to  wider  law,  from  the  collection  of 
facts  and  laws  in  the  universe  to  the  principle  on  which 
the  whole  depends.  It  is  the  element  of  boundlessness  in 
imagination,  of  illimitableness  in  desire,  of  insatiableness  in 
the  appetite  for  knowledge.     On  the  side  of  religion  we  see 


136  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

it  constantly  at  work,  modifying  the  idea  of  the  object  of 
religion,  and  bringing  it  more  into  harmony  with  what  it  is 
felt  that  an  object  of  worship  ought  to  be.  One  way  in 
which  this  is  done  is  by  the  choice  of  the  grander  objects  of 
nature — the  sky,  sun,  mountains,  etc. — as  the  embodiments 
and  manifestations  of  the  Divine.  Another  way  is  by  the  mere 
multiplication  of  the  objects  of  idolatry — the  mind  seeking  in 
this  way,  as  it  were,  to  fill  up  the  gap  in  its  depths.  Another 
way  is  physical  magnitude — hugeness.  "Nebuchadnezzar 
the  king  made  an  image  of  gold,  whose  height  was  three- 
score cubits,  and  the  breadth  thereof  six  cubits  ;  he  set  it  up 
in  the  plain  of  Dura."  ^  This  love  of  the  colossal  is  seen  in 
most  oriental  religions  (e.g.  Egyptian,  Assyrian).  Another 
way  is  by  what  Max  Miiller  calls  Henotheism — fixing  on 
one  special  deity,  and  treating  it  for  the  true  being  as  if  it 
was  alone  and  supreme.  Another  way  is  by  creating  a 
"  system,"  placing  one  deity  at  the  head  of  the  Pantheon, 
and  making  the  rest  subordinate.  We  have  examples  in  the 
position  held  by  Zeus  and  Jupiter  in  the  Greek  and 
Eoman  religions — a  position  described  by  Tiele  as  one  of 
"  Monarchism  allied  to  Monotheism."  Another  way  is  by 
tracing  back  the  origin  of  the  gods,  as  in  Hesiod,  to  some 
uncreated  principle ;  or  by  placing  behind  them  a  fate, 
necessity,  or  destiny,  which  is  a  higher  power  than  they. 
Finally,  in  the  philosophical  schools,  we  have  reasoned 
Theism,  or  Pantheism,  or  some  cosmic  theory  in  which  the 
universe  itself  becomes  God.  Through  all,  the  search  of  the 
soul  for  an  infinite  is  clearly  discernible. 
3.  The  soul,  [  3.  That  the  soul,  as  itself  ethical,  demands  an  etJdcal 
as  ethical^    I  object.       It    docs  this  in  all    the  higher  forms   of  religion. 

demands  an'  . 

ethical  object.  It  may  be  observed  that  once  the  idea  of  an  ethical  God 
has  been  brought  home  to  the  mind — no  lower  conception 
of  the  Deity  can  be  accepted.  The  agnostic  himself — 
strongly  as  he  protests  against  the  knowableness  of  God — 
will  yet   be   the  first  to  maintain   that   it  is  impossible  to 

1  Dan.  iii.  1. 


GOD  AS  RELIGIOUS  POSTULATE.  137 

entertain,  even  as  hypothesis,  any  idea  of  God  which  repre- 
sents him  as  false,  cruel,  tyrannical,  revengeful,  unjust.  He 
knows  enough  about  God,  at  any  rate,  to  be  sure  that  He  is 
not  tills, 

4.  I  may  add  that  the  soul,  as  itself  an  intelligence 
demands  a  knowalle  object.  It  has  previously  been  shown 
that,  for  purposes  of  religion,  an  unknowable  God  is 
equivalent  to  no  God  at  all.  Eeligion  seeks  not  only  a 
knowledge  of  its  object,  but  such  a  knowledge  as  can  be 
made  the  basis  of  communion.  Here,  again,  we  are  led  by 
the  very  idea  of  religion,  to  the  expectation  of  Eevelation.      [ 

The  bearing  of  all  this  on  the  Christian  view  is  very 
obvious.  It  gives  us  a  test  of  the  validity  of  the  Christian  view, 
and  it  explains  to  us  why  this  view  comes  home  to  the  spirit 
of  man  with  the  self-evidencing  power  that  it  does.  It  comes 
to  the  spirit  as  light — attests  its  truth  by  its  agreement  with 
the  laws  of  the  spirit.  The  worth  of  this  attestation  is  not 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  the  Christian  religion  itself  mostly 
creates  the  very  capacity  by  which  its  truth  can  be  perceived 
— creates  the  organ  for  its  own  verification.  It  makes  larger 
demands  upon  the  spirit,  calls  forth  higher  ideas  than  any 
other ;  but,  in  doing  so,  reveals  at  the  same  time  the  spirit  to 
itself.  Brought  to  the  foregoing  tests,  it  discovers  to  us  a 
God  personal,  infinite,  ethical,  and  knowable,  because  self- 
revealing,  and  in  this  way  answers  the  demands  of  the 
religious  spirit. 


4.   The  souly 
as  intelligence 
demands  a 

hzowable 
object. 


LECTURE  IV. 


Efje  Postulate  of  tlje  Cfjrfettan  SJieto  of  tf)e  SKorlU 
in  regartf  to  Nature  antJ  fSan. 


"By  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds  have  been  framed  by  the 
word  of  God,  so  that  what  is  seen  hath  not  been  made  out  of  things 
which  do  appear." — Epistle  to  Hebrews. 

"Man  is  neither  the  master  nor  the  slave  of  Nature ;  he  is  its  inter- 
preter and  living  word.  Man  consummates  the  universe,  and  gives  a 
voice  to  the  mute  creation." — Ed.  Quinet. 

"He  who  believes  in  God  must  also  believe  in  the  continuance  of 
man's  life  after  death.  Without  this  there  could  be  no  world  which 
would  be  conceivable  as  a  purpose  of  God." — Rothe. 

"  I  trust  I  have  not  wasted  breath  ; 
I  think  we  are  not  wholly  brain. 
Magnetic  mockeries  ;  not  in  vain, 
Like  Paul  with  beasts,  I  fought  with  Death  ; 

Not  only  cunning  casts  in  clay : 

Let  Science  prove  we  are,  and  then 

What  matters  Science  unto  men, 
At  least  to  me  ?    I  would  not  stay." 

Tennyson. 

"  Does  the  soul  survive  the  body  ?    Is  there 
God's  self,  no  or  yes  ? " 

R.  Browning. 


LECTURE    IV. 

THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  OF  THE  WOELD  IN 
EEGAED  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN. 

The  Christian  doctrine  of  God  as  personal,  ethical,  and  self-  Second postu- 
revealing,  carries  with  it  a  second  postulate  as  to  the  nature  ^j  ^f!!^^ 
of  man.     The  Christian  doctrine  of  God  and  the  Christian  vie%v—man 
doctrine  of  man   are  in  fact  correlatives.     For  how  should  ^^"^^  ^^  ^^^^ 

ii7tage  of  God. 

man  know  that  there  is  a  personal,  ethical,  self-revealing 
God, — how  should  he  be  able  to  frame  the  conception  of  such 
a  Being,  or  to  attach  any  meaning  to  the  terms  employed  to 
express  His  existence, — unless  he  were  himself  rational  and 
moral — a  spiritual  personality.  The  two  views  imply  each 
other,  and  stand  or  fall  together.  We  may  express  this 
second  postulate  of  the  Christian  view  in  the  words,  Man 
made  in  the  image  of  God.^ 

This  truth  of  a  natural  kinship  between  the  human  spirit  The  kinship  of 
and  the  Divine,  is  at  once  the  oldest  declaration  in  the  Bible  ^^^^'^ !"'''' 

tnipltea  in 

about  man,  and  is  implied  in  every  doctrine  of  the  Christian  every  Christ- 
system.  It  is  implied,  as  already  said,  in  the  knowledge  of  ^^'^  dodrme. 
God,  and  in  the  call  to  fellowship  with  Him  in  holiness  and 
love.  It  is  implied  in  the  Christian  view  of  sin ;  for  sin  in 
the  Christian  view  derives  its  tragic  significance  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  revolt  of  the  creature  will  against  the  Divine 
will,  to  which  it  is  by  nature  bound,  that  it  cuts  the  soul  off 
from  its  true  life  and  blessedness  in  union  with  God.      It  is 

1  Gen.  i.  27.  Dorner  says  truly  :  "The  absolute  personality  of  God,  and  the 
infinite  value  of  the  personality  of  man,  stand  and  fall  with  each  other." — 
Person  of  Christy  v.  p.  155. 


142    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

implied  in  regeneration,  and  in  the  capacity  of  the  soul  to 
receive  the  Spirit  of  God.  For  the  Spirit  of  God  does  not 
enter  the  soul  as  something  foreign  and  extraneous  to  it.  He 
enters  it  as  the  principle  of  its  true  life.  What,  on  the 
one  side,  we  call  the  operations  of  the  Spirit,  or  the  presence 
of  the  Spirit  in  the  soul,  we  call,  on  the  other,  the  new  life 
itself.  The  Divine  and  human  here  are  but  one  and  the  same 
thing  on  two  different  sides.  It  is  implied  also  in  the  call 
of  man  to  a  Divine  sonship.  It  is  the  case,  no  doubt, — and 
the  fact  is  one  to  be  carefully  considered, — that  in  Christ's 
teaching  God  is  not  called  the  Father  of  all  men  indiscrimin- 
ately, nor  is  the  title  "  son  of  God  "  given  to  all  men  indis- 
criminately. It  is  used  only  of  those  who  are  the  subjects  of 
spiritual  renewal,  and  who  bear  in  some  measure  the  moral 
and  spiritual  likeness  of  the  Father.^  It  does  not  denote  a 
merely  natural  or  physical  relationship,  but  a  moral  bond  as 
well.  Deliberate  and  hardened  transgressors  are  spoken  of, 
not  as  children  of  God,  but  rather  as  children  of  the  devil.^ 
But  this  is  only  because  these  wicked  persons  have  turned 
their  backs  on  their  own  true  destination.  As  made  by  God, 
and  as  standing  in  his  normal  relation  to  Him,  man  is  with- 
out doubt  a  son.  Hence,  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  though  not  by 
Christ  Himself,  Adam  is  called  "  the  son  of  God,"  ^  and  Paul 
does  not  scruple  to  quote  the  saying  of  the  heathen  poet, 
"  For  we  also  are  His  offspring."  *  The  fact  that  the  title 
"  son  of  God  "  should  belong  to  awy,  already  implies  a  natural 
kinship  between  God  and  man,  else  the  higher  relationship 
would  not  be  possible.  If  there  were  not  already  a  God- 
related  element  in  the  human  spirit,  no  subsequent  act  of 
grace  could  confer  on  man  this  spiritual  dignity."^ 

1  Matt.  V.  9,  45  ;  John  i.  12,  13.  Cf.  Schmid's  TUol.  of  the  Neio  Testament, 
p.  101  (Eng.  trans.). 

2  Matt,  xxiii.  15  ;  John  viii.  44. 

^  Luke  iii.  38.     Yet  only  through  the  context — 'A^a^,  toZ  Qiou. 

*  Acts  xvii.  28. 

•^  On  the  nature  of  man's  sonship,  cf.  Candlish's  Fatherhood  of  God,  and 
Dr.  Crawford's  work  in  reply  (same  title) ;  Bruce's  Kingdom  of  God,  chaps, 
iv.  and  v.  ;  Wendt's  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.,  pp.  145-151  ;  453-464. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  143 

Not  only  in  the  Christian  view  in  general,  but  specially  in  specially  im- 
the  great  central  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  is  this  truth  of  ^^^^^  ^'^  ^^^^ 

Incarnatio7i. 

man  made  in  the  image  of  God  seen  to  be  implied.  I  have 
already  referred  to  certain  services  which  the  German 
speculative  movement  in  the  beginning  of  the  century 
rendered  to  Christianity  in  laying  stress  on  the  essential  kin- 
ship which  exists  between  the  human  spirit  and  the  Divine, 
a  thought  never  since  lost  sight  of  in  theology.  So  long  as 
the  world  is  conceived  of  in  deistic  separation  from  God,  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  Divine  and  the  human  should  be  regarded 
as  two  opposed  essences,  between  which  true  union  is  im- 
possible. Once  this  point  of  view  is  overcome,  and  it  is 
seen  that  the  bond  between  God  and  man  is  inner  and 
essential — that  there  is  a  God-related  element  in  the  human 
spirit  which  makes  man  capable  of  receiving  from  the  Divine, 
and  of  becoming  its  living  image — a  great  step  is  taken 
towards  removing  objections  to  the  Incarnation.  A  union 
between  the  Divine  and  human  is  seen  to  be  possible,  to  the 
intimacy  of  which  no  limits  can  be  set, — which,  indeed,  only 
reaches  its  perfection  when  it  becomes  personal.  The  Incar-  ^ 
nation  has  not  only  this  doctrine  of  man  as  its  presupposition 
— it  is,  besides,  the  highest  proof  of  its  truth.  Christ,  in  His 
own  Person,  is  the  demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  Bible 
doctrine  about  man.  To  get  a  knowledge  of  the  true  essence 
of  anything  we  do  not  look  at  its  ruder  and  less  perfect 
specimens,  but  at  what  it  is  at  its  best.  Christ  is  the  best 
of  humanity.  He  is  not  only  the  Eevelation  of  God  to 
humanity,  but  the  Eevelation  of  humanity  to  itself.  In  Him 
we  see  in  perfect  form  what  man  in  the  Divine  idea  of  Him 
is.  We  see  how  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  how 
humanity  is  constituted  the  perfect  organ  for  the  Eevelation 
of  the  Divine.  ^ 

It  is  evident  that  in  the  Christian  view  the  doctrine  of  The  doctrine 
man  links  itself  very  closely  with  the  doctrine  of  nature — of  ^f^^*^^  closely 

.  linked  xvith  the 

creation.     It  is  not  merely  that  man  is  related  to  nature  by  doctrine  of 
his  body,  but  he  is  in  Scripture,  as  in  science,  the  highest  «^^«''^- 


144   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


basis — the 
doctrine  of 
creation. 


being  in  nature.  He  is,  in  some  sense,  the  final  cause  of 
nature,  the  revelation  of  its  purpose,  the  lord  and  ruler  of 
nature.  Nature  exists  with  supreme  reference  to  him;  is 
governed  with  a  view  to  his  ends ;  suffers  in  his  fall ;  and  is 
destined  to  profit  by  his  Eedemption.^  I  propose  to  begin 
with  the  natural  basis — the  doctrine  of  creation. 
/.  The  natural  I.  The  Bible  affirms,  and  perhaps  it  is  the  only  book  that 
does  so,  that  all  things,  visible  and  invisible,  have  originated 
from  God  by  a  free  act  of  creation.^  The  Bible  doctrine  of 
creation  is  something  more  than  the  Mosaic  cosmogony.  For 
my  present  purpose  it  is  indifferent  how  we  interpret  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis — whether  as  the  result  of  direct 
Eevelation,  or  as  the  expression  of  certain  great  religious 
truths  in  such  forms  as  the  natural  knowledge  of  the  age 
admitted  of.  I  believe  myself  that  the  narrative  gives  evi- 
dence of  its  Divine  original  in  its  total  difference  of  character 
from  all  heathen  cosmogonies,  but  this  is  a  view  I  need  not 
press.^  The  main  point  is  the  absolute  derivation  of  all 
things  from  God,  and  on  this  truth  the  Scripture  as  a  whole 
gives  no  uncertain  sound.  Discussions  have  been  raised  as 
to  the  exact  force  of  the  Hebrew  word  (bdrct),  used  to  express 
the  idea  of  creation,*  but  even  this  is  of  subordinate  import- 
ance in  view  of  the  fact,  which  none  will  dispute,  that  the 
uniform  teaching  of  Scripture  is  that  the  universe  had  its 
origin,  not  from  the  fashioning  of  pre-existent  matter,  but 
directly  from  the  will  and  word  of  the  Almighty.^  "  He 
spake,  and  it  was  done ;  He  commanded,  and  it  stood  fast."  ^ 
Not    only   is    this  doctrine    of    creation    fundamental    in 

1  See  pp.  226-229.  ^  cjen.  i.  1 ;  John  i.  2 ;  Col.  i.  16  ;  Heb.  xi.  3,  etc. 

3  Note  A.— The  Creation  History. 

*  Cf.  Delitzsch's  New  Commentary  on  Genesis  on  chap.  1.  1  (Eng.  trans. ) ; 
and  Schultz's  AUtestamentlicJie  Theologie,  pp.  570-571. 

^  "  Creation  out  of  nothing,"  says  Eothe,  "  is  not  found  in  express  words  in 
Holy  Scripture.  .  .  .  The  fact  itself,  however,  is  expressed  in  Scripture  quite 
definitely,  since  it  teaches  throughout  with  all  emphasis  that,  through  His 
word  and  almighty  will  alone,  God  has  called  into  being  the  world,  which  be- 
fore did  not  exist,  and  this  not  merely  in  respect  of  its  form,  but  also  of  its 
matter." — Dogmatik,  i.  133. 

^  Ps.  xxxiii.  9. 


Practical 
significance  of 
this  doctrine. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  145 

Scripture,  but  it  is  of  great  practical  significance.  It  might 
be  thought,  of  what  practical  importance  is  it  to  us  to  know- 
how  the  world  originated  ?  Is  not  this  a  question  of  purely 
speculative  interest  ?  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  con- 
vince us  that  it  is  not  so.  The  vital  thing  in  religion  is  the 
relation  of  dependence.  To  feel  that  we  and  our  world, 
that  our  human  life  and  all  that  we  are  and  have,  absolutely 
depend  on  God, — this  is  the  primary  attitude  of  rehgion. 
For  if  they  do  not  thus  depend, — if  there  is  anything  in  the 
universe  which  exists  out  of  and  independently  of  God, — 
then  what  guarantee  have  we  for  the  unfailing  execution  of 
His  purposes,  what  ground  have  we  for  that  assured  trust 
in  His  Providence  which  Christ  inculcates,  what  security 
have  we  that  all  things  will  work  together  for  good  ?  But 
to  affirm  that  all  things  depend  on  God  is  just  in  another 
way  to  affirm  the  creation  of  all  things  by  God.  They  would 
not  depend  on  Him  if  He  were  not  their  Creator.  They  do 
depend  on  Him,  because  they  are  created  by  Him.  The 
doctrine  of  creation,  therefore,  is  not  a  mere  speculation. 
Only  this  conviction  that  it  is  "  the  Lord  that  made  heaven 
and  earth  "  ^ — that  "  of  Him,  and  through  Him,  and  to  Him, 
are  all  things  "  ^ — that  He  has  created  all  things,  and  for  His 
pleasure  they  are  and  were  created,^ — can  give  us  the  con- 
fidence we  need  in  a  holy  and  wise  government  of  the 
universe,  and  in  a  final  triumph  of  good  over  evil. 

If  the  doctrine  of  creation  is  the  only  one   which  meets  The  conson- 
the   wants   of   our   religious   nature,  it  may  now  further  be  ^^'^^  of  this 

^  ''     ^  doctrine  with 

affirmed  that    it   is  a    doctrine  consonant   with  reason,  and  reason :  thr 
consistent  with  all  true  knowledge.     It  is  opposed,  first,  to  oppositions. 
all  forms  of  dualism ;  secondly,  to  a  merely  logical  derivation 
of  the  universe ;  and  thirdly,  to  the  atheistic  assertion  of  the 
self-subsistence  and  eternity  of  the  universe.     Let  us  glance 
briefly  at  these  various  oppositions. 


ce 


1  Ps.  cxxi.  2.  2  j^ojn.  xi.  36. 

^  Rev.  iv.  11.     Revised  Version  reads:  "For  Th 
aud  because  of  Thy  will  they  are  and  were  created." 


^  Rev.  iv.  11.     Revised  Version  reads:  "For  Thou  didst  create  all  things 


10 


146    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

I.  Theopposi-       1.  Partly  on  metaphysical,  partly  on  moral  grounds,  some 
tionof  \i<dM^  revived  the  old  Platonic  doctrine  of  an  eternal  matter, 

imahsm 

{Martineau,  or  Other  independent  principle,  which  exists  alongside  the 
Mdl,  etc.).  Deity,  and  conditions  and  limits  Him  in  His  working.  Thus 
Dr.  Martineau  holds  that,  in  order  to  afford  an  objective  field 
for  the  Divine  operations,  we  must  assume  something  to  have 
been  always  there,  a  primitive  datum,  eternal  as  God  Him- 
self ;  ^  while  the  late  J.  S.  Mill  thought  the  difficulties  of  the 
universe  could  be  best  explained  by  supposing  the  Creator 
hampered  by  the  insufficiency  and  intractableness  of  the 
materials  he  had  to  work  with.^  Karl  Peters,  a  disciple  of 
the  pessimistic  school  already  mentioned,  sets  up  space  as  a 
second  eternal  principle  beside  God ;  ^  and  others  have  held 
similar  views.  Philosophically,  these  theories  are  condemned 
by  the  fact  that  they  set  up  two  absolutes  in  the  universe, 
which,  if  they  really  were  absolutes,  could  never  be  brought 
into  any  relation  to  each  other,  much  less  be  embraced  in  a 
single  act  of  knowledge.  Suppose  this  eternal  matter  to 
exist  outside  of  God,  how  could  it  <even  get  to  be  known  by 
God,  or  how  could  He  ever  act  upon  it,  seeing  that  it  has  its 
being  utterly  apart  from  Him.  Or,  if  it  is  not  out  of  relation 
to  His  intelligence,  by  what  middle  term  is  this  relation 
brought  about  ?  This,  which  applies  to  two  absolutes,  applies, 
of  course,  much  more  to  a  theory  which  starts  from  an  infinity 
c         I  of  independent  atoms — that  is,  from  an  infinite  of  absolutes. 

But  these  theories  are  weighted  with  difficulties  of  another 
kind.     An  absolutely  qualityless  matter  or  vkr],  such  as  Plato 
supposes,*  is  unthinkable  and  impossible.     Plato  himself  is 
.     •  compelled  to  describe  it  as  a  yJr)  6v,  or  nothing.      It  is  a 

mere  abstraction.^     Is  Dr.  Martineau's  eternal  matter,  which 

^  Study  of  Religion,  pp.  405-408  ;  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  32,  33. 

2  lliree  Essays  on  Religioii,  pp.  178,  186.  Cf.  Plato,  T imams,  p.  51  (Marg. 
Jowett's  Plato,  iii.). 

3  Willenswelt,  pp.  835-341.  ^  Cf.  his  Timceus,  pp.  27,  35,  50,  51. 

^  Dr.  Stirling  says  :  "  A  substance  without  quality  were  a  non-ens,  and  a 
quality  without  a  substance  were  but  a  fiction  in  the  air.  Mattel',  if  to  be, 
must  be  permeated  by  form ;  and  equally  form,  if  to  be,  must  be  realised  by 
matter.    Substance  takes  being  from  quality  ;  quality,  actuality  from  substance. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  147 

has  no  properties  of  any  kind  till  the  Creator  bestows  them 
upon  it,  in  any  better  case  ?  When,  again,  Mr.  Mill  identifies 
this  eternal  element,  not  with  naked  matter,  but  with  the 
matter  and  force  which  we  know — with  constituted  matter, 
clothed  with  all  its  existing  properties  and  laws — are  we  not 
in  the  new  predicament  of  having  to  account  for  this  matter  ? 
How  came  it  there  ?  Whence  this  definite  constitution  ? 
Whence  these  powers  and  properties  and  laws  which,  in 
their  marvellous  adjustments  and  inter-relations  show  as 
much  evidence  of  design  as  any  other  parts  of  the  universe  ? 
To  suppose  that  "  the  given  properties  of  matter  and  force, 
working  together  and  fitting  into  one  another  "  ^ — which  is 
Mr.  Mill's  own  phrase — need  no  explanation,  but  only  the 
uses  subsequently  made  of  them,  is  to  manifest  a  strange 
blindness  to  the  fundamental  conditions  of  the  problem. 

2.    If   the   Scripture  doctrine   of    creation  is   opposed   to  2.  The  opposi- 
dualism  in  all  its  forms,  it  is  not  less  opposed  to  every  theory  f,^'!  ^^  f^'.   , 

^  ^  ''  'I  theism :  logical 

of  a  mere  logical  derivation  of  the  universe — whether,  with  derivation  of 
Spinoza,  the  universe  is  supposed  to  flow,  with  logical  neces-  ^^^^  ^^^^'^^rse. 
sity,  from  an  absolute  Substance ;  ^  or  with  Hegel,  to  be  the 
development  of  an  impersonal  Eeason ;  or  with  Green,  to  arise 
from  a  Reason  that  is  self-conscious.  It  is  this  doctrine  of  a 
necessary  derivation  of  the  universe  which  takes  the  place  in 
modern  times  of  the  old  theories  of  emanation ;  but  I  shall 
only  make  two  remarks  on  it.  (1)  It  involves  an  amazing 
assumption.  The  assumption  is  that  this  universe,  which 
exhibits  so  much  evidence  of  wise  arrangement,  and  of  the 
free  selection   of  means  to  attain  ends,  is  the  only  universe 

That  is  meta physic  ;  but  it  is  seen  to  be  as  well  physic, — it  is  seen  to  have 
a  physical  existence;  it  is  seen  to  be  in  rerum  natura." — Phil,  and  Theol. 
p.  43. 

^  Three  Essays,  p.  178.  I  may  refer  for  further  development  of  this  argu- 
ment to  two  articles  by  myself  in  The  Theological  Monthly  (July  and  August, 
1891),  on  "  John  Stuart  Mill  and  Christianity." 

^  Cf.  Spinoza's  Ethics,  Part  I.  Prop.  29. — ''Nothing  in  the  universe  is  con- 
tingent, but  all  things  are  conditioned  to  exist  and  operate  in  a  particular 
manner  by  the  necessity  of  the  Divine  nature."  Prop.  33. — "Things  could 
not  have  been  brought  into  being  by  God  in  any  manner  or  in  any  order 
different  from  that  which  has  in  fact  obtained." 


148    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

possible,  and  could  not,  by  any  supposition,  be  other  than  it 
is.  Such  a  theory  may  be  the  only  one  open  to  those  who 
hold  the  ground  of  the  universe  to  be  impersonal ;  but  it  is 
not  one  which  a  true  Theism  can  sanction,  and  it  is  unprov- 
able. Why  should  infinite  wisdom  not  choose  its  ends,  and 
also  freely  choose  the  means  by  which  they  are  to  be  accom- 
plished ?  Which  is  the  higher  view — that  which  regards  the 
Divine  Being  as  bound  down  to  a  single  system — one,  too, 
which  wisdom,  love,  and  freedom,  have  no  share  in  producing, 
but  which  flows  from  the  nature  of  its  cause  with  the  same 
necessity  with  which  the  properties  of  a  triangle  flow  from 
the  triangle ;  or  that  which  supposes  the  universe  to  have 
originated  in  a  free,  intelligent  act,  based  on  the  counsels  of 
an  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness  ?  ^  (2)  As  in  this  theory,  no 
place  is  left  for  freedom  in  God,  so  logically  it  leaves  no  place 
for  freedom  in  man.  Freedom  implies  initiative,  control,  a 
choice  between  possible  alternatives.  But  on  this  theory  we 
are  considering,  freedom  can  never  be  more  than  a  semblance. 
Whether  the  individual  recognises  it  or  not,  all  that  he  sees 
around  him,  and  all  that  takes  place  within  him,  is  but  the 
working  out  of  an  immanent  logical  necessity.^  Things  are 
what  they  are  by  a  necessity  as  stringent  as  that  which 
obtains  in  mathematics,  and  as  little  room  is  left  for  human 
initiative  as  on  the  most  thorough-going  mechanical  or 
materialistic  hypothesis.  History,  too,  shows  that  the  step 
from  the  one  kind  of  determinism  to  the  other  is  never 
difficult  to  take.  The  consciousness  of  freedom,  however,  is  a 
fact  too  deeply  rooted  in  our  personality ;  too  many  interests 


^  Cf.  Veitch's  Knowing  and  Being,  pp.  290,  291. 

2  Lotze  discusses  *'  the  conception  of  the  world  as  '  a  necessary,  involuntary, 
and  inevitable  development  of  the  nature  of  God,'  "  and  says  regarding  it  :  "It 
is  wholly  useless  from  the  religious  point  of  view,  because  it  leads  consistently 
to  nothing  but  a  thorough -going  determinism,  according  to  which  not  only  is 
everything  that  must  happen,  in  case  certain  conditions  occur,  appointed  in 
pursuance  of  general  laws ;  but  according  to  which  even  the  successive  occurrence 
of  these  conditions,  and  consequently  the  whole  of  history  with  all  its  details, 
is  predetermined." — Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  71,  72  (Eng. 
traois. ). 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  149 

depend  on  it  to  admit  of  its  being  thus  put  aside  at  the 
bidding  of  any  theory,  metaphysical  or  other ;  and  so  long  as 
human  freedom  stands,  this  view  of  the  origin  of  the  universe 
can  never  gain  general  acceptance. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  the  doctrine  of  creation  is  opposed  3.  Theopposi- 
to  the  atheistic  assertion  of  the  self-subsistence  and  eternity  ^/'^^^-^'l^'^^" 

ism:  self-exist- 

of  the  universe.     I  may  here  point  out  the  indications  which  ence  and 
science  itself  gives  that  the  universe  is  neither  self-subsistent  eternity  of  the 

n    •  '11  world. 

nor  eternal.  Science,  indeed,  cannot  prove  the  creation  of 
the  world,  but  it  may  bring  us  to  that  point  at  which  we  are 
compelled  to  assume  creation. 

(1)  In  the   analysis  of  nature,  science  compels  us  to  go  Evidences  of  a 
back   to  primordial   elements.      The  atomic   constitution  of /fj'^^'^"^~~ 

^  (l)  primor- 

matter  seems  one  of  the  surest  results  of  science,^  and  it  is  dial  elements, 
not  yet  suggested  that  these  primordial  elements  are  developed 
from  one  another  by  any  process  of  evolution,  or  that  their 
homogeneous  structure  and  identical  properties  are  to  be 
accounted  for  by  natural  selection  or  any  similar  cause.  Here, 
then,  is  one  limit  to  evolution,  and  it  is  important  that  those 
who  are  disposed  to  regard  evolution  as  all-embracing  should 
take  notice  of  it.  But  science  not  only  tells  us  that  the 
universe  is  built  up  of  atoms,  it  finds  that  each  of  these  atoms 
is  a  little  world  in  itself  in  intricacy  and  complexity  of 
structure ;  ^  and  the  fact  that  all  atoms  of  the  same  class  are 
exactly  alike,  perfect  copies  of  each  other  in  size,  shape, 
weight,  and    proportion,  irresistibly    suggests    the    inference 

^  Professor  Clifford  said :  "What  I  wish  to  impress  upon  you  is  this,  that 
\vhat  is  called  '  the  atomic  theory  ' — that  is  just  what  I  have  been  explaining — 
is  no  longer  in  the  position  of  a  theory,  but  that  such  of  the  facts  as  I  have 
just  explained  to  you  are  really  things  which  are  definitely  known,  and  which 
are  no  longer  suppositions." — Manchester  Science  Lecture  on  "Atoms,"  Nov. 
1872.  Cf.  art.  "Atom"  in  Ency.  Brit.,  and  Stallo's  Concepts  of  Modern 
Physics,  pp.  28,  29. 

2  The  authors  of  Tlce  Unseen  Universe  say :  "To  our  minds  it  appears  no 
less  false  to  pronounce  eternal  tJiat  aggregation  we  call  the  atom,  than  it  would 
be  to  pronounce  eternal  that  aggregationwe  call  the  sun." — P.  213.  Cf.  p.  139. 
Professor  Jevons  believes  that  "even  chemical  atoms  are  very  complicated 
structures  ;  that  an  atom  of  pure  iron  is  probably  a  vastly  more  complicated 
system  than  that  of  the  planets  and  their  satellites." — Principles  of  Science^ 
ii.  p.  452. 


I50   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

that  they  have  a  common  cause.  "  When  we  see  a  great 
number  of  things,"  says  Sir  John  Herschell,  "  precisely  alike, 
we  do  not  believe  this  similarity  to  have  originated,  except 
from  a  common  principle  independent  of  them."  Applying 
this  to  the  atoms,  he  observes,  "  The  discoveries  alluded  to 
effectually  destroy  the  idea  of  an  eternally  self-existent 
matter,  by  giving  to  each  of  its  atoms  the  essential  characters 
at  once  of  a  manufactured  article  and  a  subordinate  agent."  ^ 
This  reasoning,  I  think,  will  command  general  assent,  though 
fastidiousness  may  be  offended  with  the  phrase  "manufactured 
article  "  as  applied  to  a  work  of  Deity. 

(2)  Evolution       (2)  Science  compels  us  to  go  back  to  a  beginning  in  time. 

involves  a        j^^  doctrine  comes  here  more  powerfully  to  our  support  than 

beginning  tn  ^  x  ^  ±  x  ^ 

time,  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  some  suppose  to  be  a  denial 

of  creation.  If  the  universe  were  a  stable  system — i.e.,  if  it 
were  not  in  a  condition  of  constant  development  and  change 
— it  might  with  some  plausibility  be  argued  that  it  had 
existed  from  eternity.  But  our  knowledge  of  the  past  history 
of  the  world  shows  us  that  this  is  not  its  character ;  that  on 
the  contrary  it  is  progressive  and  developing.^  ISTow  it  lies 
in  the  very  thought  of  a  developing  universe  that,  as  we  trace 
it  back  through  narrower  and  narrower  circles  of  development, 
we  come  at  last  to  a  beginning, — to  some  point  from  which 
the  evolution  started.^  The  alternative  to  this  is  an  eternal 
succession  of  cycles  of  existence,  a  theory  which  has  often 
recurred,  but  which  brings  us  back  to  the  impossible  con- 

^  Quoted  ill  Hitchcock's  Religion  of  Oeology,  p.  105,  and  endorsed  by  Pro- 
fessor Clerk-Maxwell — art.  "Atom,"  Ency.  Brit.;  and  by  the  authors  of  The 
Unseen  Universe.  The  latter  say:  "Now,  this  production  was,  as  far  as  we 
can  judge,  a  sporadic  or  abrupt  act,  and  the  substance  produced,  that  is  to  say, 
the  atoms  which  form  the  substratum  of  the  present  universe,  bear  (as  Herschell 
and  Clerk-Maxwell  have  well  said),  from  their  uniformity  of  constitution,  all 
the  marks  of  being  manufactured  articles." — P.  214. 

^  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  acceptance  of  the  nebular  theory  of  develop- 
ment.   See  Note  B. — Evolution  in  Inorganic  Nature — The  Nebular  Hypothesis. 

^  Professor  Clerk-Maxwell  says  :  "This  idea  of  a  beginning  is  one  which  the 
physical  researches  of  recent  times  have  brought  home  to  us,  more  than  any 
observer  of  the  course  of  scientific  thought  in  former  times  would  have  had 
reason  to  expect."— Address  to  Math,  and  Phys.  Sect,  of  Brit.  Assoc,  1870. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  151 

ception  of  a  chain  without  a  first  link,  of  a  series  every  term 
of  which  depends  on  a  preceding,  while  yet  the  whole  series 
depends  on  nothing.^  Science  can  give  no  proof  of  an  eternal 
succession,  but  so  far  as  it  has  any  voice  on  the  subject  points 
in  an  opposite  direction  by  showing  that  when  the  universe 
has  parted  with  its  energy,  as  it  is  in  constant  process  of 
doing,  it  has  no  means  of  restoring  it  again.^ 

(3)  Finally,  it  is  the  view  of  many  distinguished  evolu-  (3)  Breaks  in 
tionists   that   the   course   of  evolution  itself  compels  us  to  ^f  ^  ^f  ^"^  ^^ 

development. 

recognise  the  existence  of  breaks  in  the  chain  of  development, 
where,  as  they  think,  some  new  and  creative  cause  must  have 
come  into  operation.  I  may  instance  Mr.  Wallace,  a  thorough- 
going evolutionist,  who  recognises  three  such  "  stages  in  the 
development  of  the  organic  world,  when  some  new  cause  or 
power  must  necessarily  have  come  into  action,"  viz.  (a)  at 
the  introduction  of  life,  (h)  at  the  introduction  of  sensation 
or  consciousness,  (c)  at  the  introduction  of  man.^  With  the 
view  I  hold  of  development  as  a  process,  determined  from 
within,  I  do  not  feel  the  same  need  for  emphasising  these  as 
"  breaks."  We  have  indeed,  at  the  points  named,  the  appear- 
ance of  something  entirely  new,  but  so  have  we,  in  a  lesser 
degree,  with  every  advance  or  improvement  in  the  organism, 
e.g.  with  the  first  rudiment  of  an  eye,  or  new  organ  of  any 
kind.  The  action  of  the  creative  cause  is  spread  along  the 
whole  line  of  the  advance,  revealing  itself  in  higher  and  higher 
potencies  as  the  development  proceeds.  It  only  breaks  out 
more  manifestly  at  the  points  named,  where  it  founds  a  new 
order  or  kingdom  of  existence.* 

1  See  Note  C— The  Hypothesis  of  Cycles. 

^  See  passages  quoted  in  Note  C.  '  Darwinism,  pp.  474-476. 

^  Mr.  Gore  has  said  :  "The  term  supernatural  is  purely  relative  to  what  at 
any  particular  stage  of  thought  we  mean  by  nature.  Nature  is  a  progressive 
development  of  life,  and  each  new  stage  of  life  appears  supernatural  from  the 
point  of  view  of  what  lies  below  it." — The  Incarnation  (Bampton  Lectures), 
p.  35.  Lange  has  expanded  the  same  thought.  "Each  stage  of  nature,"  he 
says,  "prepares  for  a  higher  ;  which  in  turn  may  be  regarded  as  above  nature, 
as  contrary  to  nature,  and  yet  as  only  higher  nature,  since  it  introduces  a  new 
and  higher  principle  of  life  into  the  existent  and  natural  order  of  things.  .  .  . 
Thus  the  chemical  principle  appeared  as  a  miracle  in  the  elementary  world,  as, 


152    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

Difficulties  of  While  thus  advocating,  as  part  of  the  doctrine  of  creation, 
/  e  octrine  of  ^  i3eginning  of  the  world  in  time,  I  am  not  insensible  to  the 
time.  enormous  difficulties  involved  in  that  conception.     Prior  to 

that  beginning  we  have  still,  it  may  appear,  to  postulate  a 
beginningless  eternity,  during  which  God  existed  alone.  The 
Divine  purpose  to  create  was  there,  but  it  had  not  passed  into 
act.  Here  arises  the  difficulty.  How  are  we  to  fill  up  in 
thought  these  blank  eternal  ages  in  the  Divine  life  ?  The 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  with  its  suggestion  of  an  internal 
Divine  life  and  love,  comes  in  as  an  aid,^  but,  abstracting  from 
the  thought  of  the  world,  of  the  universe  afterwards  to  be 
created,  we  know  of  nothing  to  serve  as  a  content  of  the 
Divine  mind,  unless  it  be  the  so-called  "  eternal  truths."  So 
that  here  we  are  in  presence  of  a  great  deep.  A  yet  greater 
difficulty  arises  when  we  ask,  Since  God  purposed  to  create, 
why  was  creation  so  long  delayed  ?  Why  was  a  whole 
eternity  allowed  to  elapse  before  the  purpose  was  put  into 
execution  ?  ^  If  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  love  and  wisdom  to 
produce  a  universe,  why  was  creation  not  as  eternal  as  the 
purpose  of  it  ?  Why  an  eternity's  quiescence,  and  then  this 
transient  act  ?  Or,  rather,  since  in  eternity  no  one  moment 
is  indistinguishable  from  another,  why  this  'particular  moment 
chosen  for  creation  ?  The  very  mentioning  of  these  difficul- 
ties suggests  that  somehow  we  are  on  a  wrong  track,  and 
that  the  solution  lies — since  solution  there  must  be,  whether 

introducing  a  new  and  higher  life  ;  similarly,  the  principle  of  crystallisation  is 
a  miracle  with  reference  to  the  lower  principle  of  chemical  affinity ;  the  plant, 
a  miracle  above  the  crystal ;  the  animal,  a  miracle  in  reference  to  the  plant ; 
and  man,  over  all  the  animal  world.  Lastly,  Christ,  as  the  Second  Man,  the 
God-Man,  is  a  miracle  above  all  the  world  of  the  first  man,  who  is  of  the  earth 
earthy." — Covfi.  on  Matt.  p.  152  (Eng.  trans.). 

1  Of.  Professor  Flint,  in  Anti-Theistic  Theories,  pp.  438-439.  He  remarks: 
"Although  Omnij)otence  cannot  express  itself  fully  in  the  finite  world  to 
which  we  belong,  the  Divine  nature  may  be  in  itself  an  infinite  universe,  where 
this  and  all  other  attributes  can  find  complete  expression.  .  .  .  The  Divine 
nature  must  have  in  itself  a  plenitude  of  power  and  glory,  to  which  the  pro- 
duction of  numberless  worlds  can  add  nothing." 

^  This  objection  was  early  urged  against  the  doctrine  of  creation.  Cf. 
Origen,  De  Principiis,  Book  iii.  p.  5 ;  Augustine,  De  Givitate  Dei,  Book  xi. 
p.  5. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  153 

we  can  reach  it  or  not — in  the  revisal  of  the  notions  we  set  ~    _ 

out  with  as  to  the  relations  of  eternity  to  time. 

First,  some  have  sought  to  cut  this  knot  by  the  doctrine  Proposed 

of   an  eternal   creation.     God,  it   is   thouf^ht,  did   not  wait  ^oiutims— 

°  (i.)  Theof-y  oj 

through    a    solitary    eternity   before    He    called    the    world  eternal 

into  existence — the  act  of  creation  is  coeval  with  His  Being,  ^'"^«^'^^- 
and  the  world,  though  a  creature  and  dependent,  is  eternal 
as  Himself.  This  was  the  doctrine  of  Origen  in  the  early 
Church,  of  Erigena  in  the  middle  ages,  and  has  been  revived 
by  Eothe,  Dorner,  Lotze,  and  many  others  in  modern  times. 
It  is  carefully  to  be  distinguished  from  the  doctrine  of  a 
pre-existent  eternal  matter  formerly  referred  to.  But  I  do 
not  think  it  solves  the  difficulty.  It  is  either  only  the 
doctrine  of  an  eternal  series  of  worlds  in  another  form,  and 
is  exposed  to  all  the  difficulties  of  that  assumption ;  or  it 
seeks  to  evade  these  difficulties  of  that  supposition  by  the 
hypothesis  of  an  undeveloping  spiritual  world,  standing,  as 
Dorner  says,  in  the  light  of  eternity,  antecedent  to  the  exist- 
ing one — an  hypothesis  which  leaves  the  origin  of  the 
temporal  and  developing  world  precisely  where  it  was.  Be- 
sides, how  is  the  purpose  of  God  ever  to  be  summed  up  into 
a  unity,  if  there  is  literally  no  beginning  and  no  goal  in 
creation  ?  ^ 

Secondly,  another  form  of  solution  is  that  of  the  specula-  (2)  Denial  of 
tive  philosophers,  who  would  have  us  regard  the  distinction  *^\^  existence  oj 

^  ^  ^  o  ^  time  to  God. 

of  time  and  eternity  as  due  only  to  our  finite  standpoint,  and 
who  bid  us  raise  ourselves  to  that  higher  point  of  view  from 
which  all  things  are  beheld,  in  Spinoza's  phrase,  svh  specie 
ceternifatis.^  The  meaning  of  this  is,  that  what  exists  for  our 
consciousness  as  a  time-development  exists  for  the  Divine 
consciousness  as  an  eternally  completed  whole.  For  God, 
temporal  succession  has  no  existence.  The  universe,  with  all 
its  determinations,  past,  present,  and  future,  stands  before  the 

1  See  Note  D. — "Eternal  Creation," 

2  Spinoza's  Ethics,  Part  II.  Prop.  44,  Cor.  ii. — "  It  is  tlie  nature  of  reason  to 
perceive  things  sub  quadam  cBternitaiis  specie." 


154   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAJ^  VIEW 

Divine  mind  in  simultaneous  reality.  Language  of  this  kind 
is  found  in  Spinoza,  Fichte,  Hegel,  Green,^  and  is  to  be  met 
with  sometimes  in  more  orthodox  theologians.  It  is,  how- 
ever, difficult  to  see  what  meaning  can  be  attached  to  it 
which  does  not  reduce  all  history  to  an  illusion.^  For,  after 
all,  time  development  is  a  reality.  There  is  succession  in  our 
conscious  life,  and  in  the  events  of  nature.  The  things  that 
happened  yesterday  are  not  the  things  that  are  happening  to- 
day. The  things  that  are  happening  to-day  are  not  the 
things  that  will  happen  to-morrow.  The  past  is  past ;  the 
future  is  not  yet  come.  It  is  plain  that  if  time  is  a  reality, 
the  future  is  not  yet  present  to  God,  except  ideally.  The 
events  that  will  happen  to-morrow  are  not  yet  existent.  Else 
life  is  a  dream  ;  all,  as  the  Indian  philosophers  say,  is  Maya, 
— illusion,  appearance,  seeming.  Even  if  life  is  a  dream, 
there  is  succession  in  the  thoughts  of  that  dream,  and  time 
is  still  not  got  rid  of.  I  cannot  see  therefore  that,  without 
reducing  the  process  of  the  world  to  unreality,  this  view  of  it 
as  an  eternally  completed  fact  can  be  upheld.  In  an  ideal 
sense  the  world  may  be,  doubtless  is,  present  to  the  Divine 
mind ;  but  as  regards  the  parts  of  it  yet  future,  it  cannot  be 
so  actually.^ 

^  A  good  illustration  is  afforded  by  Mr.  Green  in  a  fragment  on  Immortality. 
"As  a  determination  of  thought,"  he  says,  "everything  is  eternal.  "What  are 
we  to  say,  then,  to  the  extinct  races  of  animals,  the  past  formations  of  the 
earth  ?  How  can  that  which  is  extinct  and  past  be  eternal  ?  .  .  .  The  process 
is  eternal,  and  they  as  stages  in  it  are  so  too.  That  which  has  passed  away  is 
only  their  false  appearance  of  being  independent  entities,  related  only  to  them- 
selves, as  opposed  to  being  stages,  essentially  related  to  a  before  and  after.  In 
other  words,  relatively  to  our  temporal  consciousness,  which  can  only  present 
one  thing  to  itself  at  a  time,  and  therefore  supposes  that  when  A  follows  B, 
Y>  ceases  to  exist,  they  have  perished ;  relatively  to  the  thought  which,  as 
eternal,  holds  past,  present,  and  future  together,  they  are  permanent ;  their 
very  transitoriness  is  eternal." — Works,  iii.  p.  ]59. 

^  Hegel,  indeed,  says  :  "  Within  the  range  of  the  finite  we  can  never  see  that 
the  end  or  aim  has  really  been  secured.  The  consummation  of  the  infinite  aim, 
therefore,  consists  merely  in  removing  the  illusion  which  makes  it  seem  yet 
unaccomplished.  ...  It  is  this  illusion  under  which  we  live.  ...  In  the 
course  of  its  process  the  Idea  makes  itself  that  illusion,  by  setting  an  antithesis 
to  confront  it ;  and  its  action  consists  in  getting  rid  of  the  illusion  which  it  has 
created." — Wallace's  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  304. 

^  Cf.    Veitch's   Knoicing  and  Being,   chap.   vii.  ;   Seth's  Hegelianism  and 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  155 

What  other  solution,  then,  is  possible  ?     The  solution  must  (3)  Solution 
lie   in  getting  a  proper  idea  of   the   relation  of  eternity  to  \  hi^adLt-^ 
time,  and  this,  so  far  as  I   can  see,  has  not  yet  been  satis-  ment  of  the 
factorily  accomplished.     The  nearest  analogy  I  can  suggest  ^f  ^^"''^"^ '^-^ 
is  that  of  the  spiritual  thinking  principle  within  ourselves,  eternity. 
which  remains  a  constant  factor  in  all  the  flux  of  our  thoughts 
and  feelings.     It  is  in  the-midst  of  them,  yet  it  is  out  of  the 
flux  and  above  them.     It  is  not  involved  in  the  succession  of 
time,  for  it  is  the  principle  which  itself  relates  things  in  the 
succession   of    time — for   which,   therefore,   such    succession 
exists.       I    would    only   venture    to    remark,    further,    that 
even  if  the  universe  were  conceived  of  as  originating  in  an 
eternal   act,   it   would   still,  to   a   mind   capable   of   tracing 
it    back    through    the    various    stages    of    its    development, 
present   the   aspect   of    a   temporal   beginning.     Before  this 
beginning,  it   would  be  possible  for  the  mind  to  extend  its 
vision  indefinitely  backwards  through  imaginary  ages,  which 
yet   had   no  existence   save   as   its    own   ideal  construction. 
But  God's  eternity  is  not  to  be  identified  with  this  thought 
of  an  indefinitely  extended  time.     Eternity  we  may  rather 
take  to  be  an  expression  for  the  timeless  necessity  of  God's 
existence ;  and  time,  properly  speaking,  begins  its  course  only 
with  the  world.^ 

A  few  words  before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject  on  the  The  motive 
motive  and  end  of  creation.     If  we  reject  the  idea  of  meta-  ^^^^^"^^f 

•^  creation : 

physical  necessity,  and  think  of  creation  as  originating  in  a  Kant,  Lotze, 
free,  intelligent  act,  it  must,  like  every  similar  act,  be  con-  ^^'^^ 
ceived  of  as  proceeding  from  a  motive,  which  includes  in  it 
at  the  same  time  a  rational  end.  And  if  God  is  free,  personal 
Spirit,  who  is  at  the  same  time  ethical  Will,  what  motive  is 
possible  but  goodness  or  love,  or  what  end  can  be  thought  of 
but  an  ethical  one  ?  In  this  way  it  may  be  held  that  though 
the  universe  is  not  the   product  of  a  logical  or  metaphysical 

Personality,  pp.  180-184;  Pfleiderer,  Beligionsphilosophie,  iii.  pp.  293-295 
(Eng.  trans.);  Lotze,  Microcosmus,  ii.  p.  711  (Eng.  trans.) ;  and  see  Note  D  to 
Lect.  III. 

1  See  Note  E.— Eternity  and  Time. 


156    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

necessity,  it  arises  from  the  nature  of  God  by  a  moral  neces- 
sity which  is  one  with  the  highest  freedom,  and  thus  the 
conception  of  creation  may  be  secured  from  arbitrariness.  It 
is  an  old  thought  that  the  motive  to  the  creation  of  the  world 
was  the  goodness  of  the  Creator.  Plato  expresses  this  idea 
in  his  Timmus}  and  points  to  a  yet  more  comprehensive  view 
when,  in  the  BepuUic,  he  names  "  the  Good  "  as  the  highest 
principle  both  of  knowledge  and  of  existence.^  Since  the 
time  of  Kant,  philosophy  has  dealt  in  very  earnest  fashion 
with  this  idea  of  "  the  Good  " — now  conceived  of  as  ethical 
good,  but  likewise  as  including  in  it  the  highest  happiness 
and  blessedness — as  at  once  the  moving  cause  and  end  of  the 
world.  Start  from  the  postulate  of  Kant,  that  moral  ends 
are  alone  of  absolute  worth,  and  the  inference  is  irresistible 
that  the  world  as  a  whole  is  constituted  for  moral  ends,  and 
that  it  has  its  cause  in  a  Supreme  Original  Good,  which  pro- 
duces the  natural  for  the  sake  of  the  moral,  and  is  guiding 
the  universe  to  a  moral  goal.^  Hence,  from  his  principles, 
Kant  arrives  at  the  notion  of  an  ethical  community  or  "  King- 
dom of  God,"  having  the  laws  of  virtue  as  its  basis  and  aim, 
as  the  end  to  which  creation  tends.*  Lotze  takes  up  the  same 
thought  of  a  world  ordered  in  conformity  with  the  idea  of 
"  the  Good,"  and  having  its  source  in  a  Highest-Good  Personal, 
and  from  him  chiefly  it  has  entered  into  Eitschlian  theology.^ 
But  Christian  theology  from  its  own  standpoint  arrives  at  a 
similar  result.  We  have  but  to  ask,  with  Dorner,  What  is 
the  relation  of  the  ethical  nature  of  God  to  the  other  dis- 
tinctions we  ascribe   to  Him  ?  to  see  that  "  the  non-ethical 


^  Timceus,  p.  29 — "  Let  me  tell  you,  then,  why  the  Creator  created  and  made 
the  universe.  He  was  good,  and  no  goodness  can  ever  have  any  jealousy  of 
anythiug.  And  being  free  from  jealousy,  he  desired  that  all  things  should  be 
as  like  Himself  as  possible." — Jowett's  Plato,  iii.  p.  613. 

2  EejmbUc,  Bk.  vi.  ^  See  last  Lecture,  pp.  129-131. 

"^  In  his  Religion  innerhalh  der  Grenzen  der  blossen  Vernunft,  Bk.  iii.  Cf. 
Seth's  From  Kant  to  Hegel,  pp.  123,  124;  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Kant, 
pp.  611-613. 

^  Cf.  Microcosmus,  ii.  p.  723  (Eng.  trans.) ;  Outlines  of  Metayhysic,  pp.  151, 152 
(Eng.  trans.). 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  157 

distinctions  in  the  nature  of  God  are  related  to  the  ethical  as 
means  to  an  end;  but  the  absolute  end  can  only  lie  in 
morality,  for  it  alone  is  of  absolute  worth."  ^  In  the  graduated 
system  of  ends  of  which  the  universe  consists,  the  moral,  in 
other  words,  must  be  presumed  to  be  the  highest.  And  this 
is  precisely  what  Christianity  declares  when  it  teaches  that 
Christ  and  the  kingdom  of  God  are  the  consummation  of 
God's  world- purpose ;  that  the  government  of  the  world  is 
carried  on  for  moral  ends ;  and  that  "  all  things  work 
together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God."  ^ 

II.  From  the  point  now  reached,  the  transition  is  easy  to  //.  Nature  of 
the   Scripture   doctrine   of    the   nature   of   man,  and   of  his  ^''"' '^'''^'^" 

...  .  1       .      -I  place  in 

position  m  creation.     I  may  begin  here  with  man's  place  in  creation : ' 
creation,  which  of  itself  is  a  testimony  which  nature  bears  ^^'^  the  final 

.1  •  1  r.  ^     -I   .       ,  .  .  cause  of  the 

to  the  meaning  and  purpose  of  God  m  that  creation.  Assum-  ^orld. 
ing  that  final  cause  is  to  be  traced  in  the  world  at  all,  we  can 
get  no  better  clue  to  it  than  by  simply  observing  whither 
the  process  of  development  tends — what,  as  Mr.  Spencer  says, 
is  "  the  naturally  revealed  end "  towards  which  evolution 
works.^  Here  is  a  process  of  development,  of  evolution, 
going  on  for  millenniums — what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  do  we 
find  to  be  the  outcome  of  it  ?  At  the  base  of  the  scale  is 
inorganic  matter  ;  then  we  rise  to  organic  life  in  the  vegetable 
world  ;  as  a  next  round  in  the  ladder  of  ascent  we  have 
animal  and  sentient  life ;  we  rise  through  all  the  gradations 
of  that  life — through  insect,  fish,  reptile,  bird,  mammal — till 
at  length,  at  the  close  of  the  long  line  of  evolution,  we  find — 
What  ?  Man,  a  self-conscious,  personal,  rational  moral  being; 
a  being  capable  of  entering  not  only  into  moral  relations  with 
his  fellowmen,  but,  infinitely  higher,  into  spiritual  and  moral 
relations  with  his  invisible  Creator.  Man's  creation,  it  is 
true,  is  only  the  starting-point  of  a  new  line  of  evolution, 
but  that  evolution  is  one  of  moral  life.     So  far  as  the  teach- 

^  Christian  EtJilcs,  p.  65  (Eng.  trans.).  2  j^oni.  viii.  28. 

^  Ifata  of  Ethics,  p.  171. 


158    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

ing  of  evolution  goes,  then,  man  is  the  crown  and  masterpiece 
of  this  whole  edifice  of  creation,  and  this  also  is  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible.  I  have  been  frequently  struck  with  this  in 
reading  the  works  of  Mr.  Spencer  and  of  other  evolutionists, 
that  none  of  them  supposes  that  evolution  is  ever  to  reach  a 
higher  being  than  man  ;  that  whatever  future  development 
there  is  to  be  will  not  be  development  beyond  humanity,  but 
development  within  humanity.  In  this  it  is  implied  that 
man  is  the  end  of  nature,  and  that  the  end  of  nature  is  a 
moral  one.  In  man,  if  we  may  so  speak,  mute  and  unin- 
telligent nature  attains  to  consciousness  of  itself,  gains  the 
power  of  reading  back  meaning  into  its  own  blind  past,  and 
has  a  prophecy  of  the  goal  to  which  its  future  tends.  At  the 
summit  of  nature's  gradations — of  her  inorganic  kingdom 
and  plant  kingdom  and  animal  kingdom — ^there  stands  a 
being  fitted  for  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Agreement  of  The  agreement  of  Scripture  and  science  up  to  this  point  is 
Scripture  and  patent  and  incontestable.     In  the  original  picture  in  Genesis 

science  on  this 

point.  we    have,    as   in    nature,    a    gradually    ascending    series    of 

creations.  We  have  man  at  the  top  of  the  scale ;  man  as  the 
latest  being  of  all,  and  distinguished  from  all  by  the  fact 
that  he  alone  bears  his  Creator's  image ;  man  set  at  the  head 
of  the  lower  orders  of  creatures,  as  God's  rational  vicegerent 
and  representative.  Science  corroborates  all  this.  It  gives 
to  man  the  same  place  in  the  ascending  series  of  creations 
as  Scripture  gives  him ;  declares  him  to  be  the  last  and  final 
product  of  nature  ;  links  him  intimately  with  the  past  through 
his  physical  organisation,  in  which  the  whole  of  nature,  as 
physiology  shows,  recapitulates  itself ;  and  at  the  same  time 
acknowledges  that  he  stands  alone,  and  far  removed  from  the 
other  creatures,  in  his  powers  of  thought  and  language,  in  his 
capacity  for  a  self-regulated  moral  life  under  general  rules,  in 
his  religious  nature,  in  his  capability  of  progress,  and  of 
boundless  productivity  in  arts,  sciences,  laws,  and  institutions. 
Nay,  looking  at  creation  as  a  whole,  from  the  vantage-ground 
which  our  present  knowledge  gives  us,  we  can  feel  that  its 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  159 

plan  would  have  remained  incomplete,  its  pyramid  would 
have  lacked  a  summit,  had  man  not  appeared  upon  the  scene. 
For  man  not  only  stands  at  the  head  of  creation,  but,  in  virtue 
of  his  rational  nature,  he  occupies  a  position  in  relation  to  it 
different  from  every  other.  The  animal,  however  high  in  the 
scale  of  development,  is  a  mere  creature  of  nature ;  man  has  a 
life  above  nature.  He  is  a  being  of  "  large  discourse,  looking 
before  and  after."  ^  He  is  capable  of  reflection  on  himself ; 
on  the  meaning  and  causes  of  things  in  the  world  around 
him  ;  on  the  ends  of  his  own  existence.  He  can  rise  above 
momentary  impulse  and  passion,  and  guide  his  life  by  general 
principles  of  reason,  and  so  is  capable  of  morality.  For  the 
same  reason  he  is  capable  of  religion,  and  shows  his  superiority 
over  nature  through  the  thoughts  he  cherishes  of  God,  of 
infinity,  of  eternity.  Till  a  mind  of  this  kind  appeared, 
capable  of  surveying  the  scene  of  its  existence,  of  understand- 
ing the  wisdom  and  beauty  displayed  in  its  formations,  and  of 
utilising  for  rational  purposes  the  vast  resources  laid  up  in 
its  treasuries,  the  very  existence  of  such  a  world  as  this  is 
remained  an  inexplicable  riddle :  an  adequate  final  cause — 
an  end  for  self — was  not  to  be  found  in  it.^ 

It    would,   indeed,   be   an    exaggeration   to  view  creation  Necessary 
solely  from  the  standpoint  here   taken.     The  position  that  ^^'^^^'^^^^"  •* 

.  ma7i  not 

man  IS  tlie  final  cause  or  creation  must  obviously  be  \i.^^  the  sole  e7td  of 
with  certain  qualifications.  Were  we  to  attempt  to  maintain  c'^£o,tion. 
that  the  world  exists  solely  for  man's  use  and  benefit,  we 
would  be  met  by  unanswerable  objections.  Because  man 
is  the  supreme  end  of  nature,  it  does  not  follow  that  there 
are  not  lower  ends — the  happiness  of  the  sentient  creatures, 
e.g.,  and  many  others  that  we  do  not  know.  This  world, 
again,  is  part  of  a  wider  system,  and  there  may  be  not  only 
lower  ends,  but  wider  ends,  than  those  prescribed  by  man's 
existence.  There  is  a  delight  which  creative  wisdom  has  in 
its  own  productions,  which  is  an  end  in  itself.  God  saw  the 
works  that  He  had  made,  and  behold  they  were  good  ;  though 
^  Hamlet,  act  iv.  scene  4.  ^  g^e  Note  F. — Man  the  Head  of  Creation. 


i6o   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

not  till  man  appeared  upon  the  scene  were  they  declared 
"  very  good."  ^  But  this  in  no  degree  militates  against  the 
position  that  the  main  use  and  end  of  nature  is  to  subserve 
the  purposes  of  man's  existence.  Is  not  this  to  a  thinking 
mind  implied  in  its  very  dispositions  and  arrangements,  in  its 
distribution  of  land  and  sea,  in  its  river  plains  and  ocean 
communication,  in  its  supplies  of  mineral  and  other  wealth 
stored  up  in  its  recesses,  in  the  forces  it  puts  at  man's  dis- 
posal for  the  accomplishment  of  his  purposes,  in  the  very 
obstacles  it  interposes  in  the  way  of  his  advancement, 
stimulating  his  mental  activity,  summoning  forth  his  powers 
to  contend  with  difficulties,  and  in  this  way  rousing  him  up 
to  further  conquests  ?  There  are  yet  higher  teleological 
relations  which  nature  sustains  to  man,  on  which  I  cannot 
now  dwell — the  part,  e.g.,  which  natural  conditions  play,  as 
in  Greece,  in  the  development  of  the  character  and  spirit  of 
peoples ;  the  food  which  the  study  of  nature  affords  to  his 
intellect ;  the  beauty  which  delights,  and  the  sublimity 
which  awes  him,  both  speaking  to  his  spirit  of  things  higher 
than  themselves ;  the  suggestions  it  gives  of  the  infinite  and 
eternal,  etc.  Taking  it  all  in  all,  we  may  rest  in  the  view 
that  man,  as  nature's  highest  being,  is  the  key  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  whole  development ;  that  nature  does  not 
exist  for  its  own  sake,  but  supremely  for  the  sake  of  the 
moral ;  that  its  chief  end  is  to  furnish  the  means  for  such  a 
development  as  we  now  see  in  the  mental  and  moral  history 
of  mankind.^ 
Mmi  a  com-  As  a  compound  being,  made  up  of  body  and  of  spirit,  man 
pound  being—  -^  ^j^^  \yi^  which  unitcs  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  worlds.^ 

the  link  •        i        i      i  i  •   i 

between  the      The  direct  link  between  man  and  nature  is  the  body,  which 

natural  and 

the  spiritJial: 

his  body  the  '  ^en.  i.  31.  ,,  ^      ,        ,_    . 

I'nk  %vith  '^  ^^  ^^®  teleological  relations  of  nature  to  man,  see  Kant,  Kritik  a.  Urtheil- 

nature  Tcroft,  sect.  83 — "Of  the  last  end  of  nature  as  a  teleological  system,"  and 

sect.  84 — "Of  the  final  end  of  the  existence  of  a  world,  i.e.  of  the  creation 
itself;"  and  cf.  Caird,  Philosophy  of  Kant,  ii.  pp.  545-557. 

2  See  this  thought  worked  out  in  Herder's  Ideen  zur  Phil.  d.  Gesch.  der 
Mf:nschheit  (cf.  Book  v.  6,  quoted  in  Note  F).    . 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  i6i 

in  its  erect  posture,  its  highly  evolved  brain,  its  developed 
limbs,  and  its  countenance  lifted  up  to  the  heavens,  bears 
witness,  as  already  Ovid  reminds  us,^  to  the  dignity  of  the 
soul  within.  As  Materialism  ignores  the  rights  of  the  spirit, 
and  would  reduce  thought,  feeling,  and  will,  to  functions 
of  matter;  so  an  ultra-spirituality  is  too  apt  to  ignore  the 
rights  of  the  body,  and  to  regard  it  as  a  mere  accident  of 
man's  personality.  Materialism  quite  rightly  protests  against 
this  one-sidedness  ;  and  the  whole  tendency  of  modern  inquiry 
is  to  draw  the  two  sides  of  man's  nature — the  material  and 
the  spiritual,  the  physical  and  the  metaphysical,  the  physio- 
logical and  the  mental — more  closely  together.  The  Bible 
avoids  both  extremes.  Materialism  gets  all  its  rights  in  the 
Bible  doctrine  of  the  body.  The  abstract  spirituality  of  a 
Plotinus,  or  of  a  hyper-refined  idealism,  which  regards  the 
body  as  a  mere  envelope  of  the  soul,  dropped  off  at  death 
without  affecting  its  entirety,  is  quite  foreign  to  it.  I  do 
not  dwell  on  this  now,  as  I  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  it 
in  the  following  Lectures.  Enough  to  remark  that  the  Bible 
history  of  man's  creation ;  the  remarkable  honour  it  places 
on  the  body  as  God's  workmanship  and  the  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ;  its  doctrines  of  sin,  with  death  as  the  penalty ; 
of  the  Incarnation — "  forasmuch  as  the  children  are  partakers 
of  flesh  and  blood,  He  also  Himself  likewise  took  part  of  the 
same  "  ;  ^  of  Eedemption,  which  includes  "  the  Eedemption  of 
the  body  "  ;  ^  of  the  future  life  in  a  glorified  corporeity — all 
warn  us  against  an  undue  depreciation  of  the  body. 

I  go  on  to  remark  that  if  the  Bible  gives  its  rightful  place  The  spiritual 
to  the  body,  much  more  does  it  lay  stress  on  the  possession '^"^^"''^  j( 

•^  ''  ^  ^        man — dis- 

by  man  of  a  spirit,  which  is  the  true  seat  of  his  personality,  cussion  of 
and  the  link  which  unites  him  with  the  spiritual  world,  and  Bibhcal  tcnns. 
with   God.     Psychological  questions   would   be   here   out  of 

^  Metamoiyhofies,  i.  2  : 

' '  Pronaque  qunm  specteiit  animalia  cetera  terram, 

Os  honiini  sublime  dedit,  coelumque  tueri 

Jussit,  et  erectos  ad  sidera  tollere  vultus." 
'^  Heb.  ii.  14.  •''  Rom.  viii.  23. 


1 62    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

place,  and  I  can  only  enter  into  a  very  brief  examination  of 
the  Biblical  terms  used  to  express  the  different  aspects  of 
man's  spiritual  nature,  relegating  the  further  discussion  of 
these  to  their  proper  sphere  in  Biblical  theology  or  psy- 
chology.^ I  would  first  remark  that  the  Biblical  usage  of 
psychological  terms  can  only  be  understood  if  we  keep  strictly 
to  the  Biblical  point  of  view.  In  the  Old  Testament,  it  is 
the  unity  of  the  personality  which  is  the  main  fact,  and  not 
the  distinction  of  an  immaterial  and  a  material  part,  as  in 
our  modern  usage.  NepTiesh  or.  soul  does  not  in  the  Old 
Testament  stand  opposed  to  body,  but  is  rather  the  principle 
of  "  life  "  which  manifests  itself  on  the  one  hand  in  the  cor- 
poreal functions  ("  the  life  is  in  the  blood  "^),  and  on  the  other 
in  the  conscious  activities  of  the  mind.  The  real  contrast  in 
the  Old  Testament  is  between  "  flesh  "  (hasar)  and  "  spirit " 
(rHach),  and  the  "  soul "  is  the  middle  term  between  them, 
the  unity  of  them.^  This  does  not  mean  that  "  soul "  and 
"  spirit "  are  separable  elements  in  the  same  way  that  "  soul " 
and  "  body  "  are,  but  it  means  that  the  "  soul,"  as  inbreathed 
by  God,  is  the  source  or  seat  of  a  double  life.  On  the  one 
side,  it  is  the  animating  principle  of  the  body  ;  the  source  of 
all  vital  functions.  It  is  its  presence  in  the  body  which 
constitutes  the  latter  "  flesh,"  On  the  other  side,  it  is  the 
principle  of  self-conscious  life.  Various  names  are  em- 
ployed to  denote  the  kinds  of  these  self-conscious  activities ; 
but  they  may  be  grouped  generally  under  the  name  "  spirit." 
More  explicitly,  all  the  activities  of  the  "  spirit "  belong  to 
the  "  soul " ;  but  the  converse  is  not  true,  that  all  the 
activities  of  the  "soul"  belong  to  the  "spirit."  For  the  vital 
functions  of  the  body,  with  the  appetites,  desires,  impulses, 

^  Cf.  on  this  subject  the  works  of  Delitzsch  and  Beck  on  Biblical  Psychology ; 
Oehler  and  Schultz  on  Old  Testament  Theology  ;  Wendt's  Inhalt  der  Lehre 
Jesu;  Heard  on  the  Tripartite  Nature  of  Man ;  Laidlaw's  Bible  Doctrine  of 
Man  ;  Dickson's  Flesh  and  Spirit  (Baird  Lectures),  etc. 

2  Lev.  xvii.  11. 

^  Another  word  for  Spirit  is  N^shdmdh — used  twice  in  Old  Testament,  once 
in  a  noteworthy  passage  for  the  principle  of  self-consciousness  (Prov.  xx.  27),  as 
in  1  Cor.  ii.  11. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  163 

etc.,  which  belong  to  this  side  of  our  nature,  likewise  are 
traceable  to  it  as  their  source.  It  is  only  the  higher  activities 
of  the  "  soul  " — those  which  we  still  denominate  "  spiritual " 
— I  speak  of  general  usage,  for  probably  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction we  can  make  which  has  not  some  exception — which 
are  described  by  the  term  "  spirit."  Thus,  we  read  of  a  spirit 
of  wisdom,  of  knowledge,  of  understanding,  of  an  upright 
spirit,  a  free  spirit,  a  contrite  spirit,  etc.^  That  the  "  soul," 
essentially  considered,  is  also  spiritual,  is  implied  in  its  origin 
from  the  Divine  Spirit.  In  the  New  Testament  we  have  a 
distinction  of  "  soul "  and  "  body "  much  more  akin  to  our 
own,  though  the  influence  of  Old  Testament  usage  is  still  very 
marked.  "  Soul "  ('^v'^rj)  still  includes  a  higher  and  a  lower 
life  ;  and  the  higher  life  is  still  denoted  by  the  term  "  spirit  " 
(irvev/jia) ;  while  the  implication  of  a  body  is  still  always 
conveyed  in  the  term  "  soul."  There  is  no  "  soul "  which  is 
not  intended  to  animate  a  "  body " ;  there  are  incorporeal 
spirits  (angels,  demons),  but  they  are  not  called  by  the  name 
"  souls."  On  the  other  hand,  the  "  soul "  is  recognised  as 
spiritual  in  its  essence,  and  in  its  disembodied  state  is  classed 
among  "  spirits,"  e.g.  "  the  spirits  in  prison."  ^  I  need  not 
discuss  the  cognate  terms  heart  (KapBla),  mind  (vov<;), 
understanding  (BidvoLo),  etc.,  but  content  myself  with  saying 
that,  except  in  the  sense  above  explained,  I  do  not  see  how 
a  trichotomous  view  of  man's  nature  can  be  maintained.  The 
distinction  of  "  soul "  and  "  spirit "  is  a  distinction  within  the 
one  indivisible  spiritual  nature ;  and  the  antithesis  "  soul  " 
and  "body"  really  covers  all  the  facts  of  man's  personal 
life.  The  highest  functions  of  the  "  spirit "  are  in  the  New 
Testament  ascribed  also  to  the  "  soul  "  ;  ^  and  the  "  soul "  in 
turn  is  used  by  Jesus  as  a  name  for  man's  highest  imperish- 
able life.  "  He  that  hateth  his  life  (irvxv)  in  this  world  shall 
keep  it  unto  life  eternal."  * 

^  Isa.  xi.  2  ;  Ps.  li.  10-12.     Some  of  the  references  are  to  the  Divine  Spirit, 
but  as  the  source  of  spiritual  powers  in  man. 

^  1  Pet.  iii.  19.  ^  ^_^^  j^^tt.  xxii.  27  ;  Luke  i.  46.  ^  John  xii.  25. 


1 64    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

Man  as  FroHi  this  digression,  I  return  to  the  fact  that  it  is  in  his 

bearing  the      «  g^^j »   ^^  «  spirit  "   that  man  peculiarly   bears  the  Divine 

ima^e  of  God.  i  i     . 

image.  In  a  threefold  respect  is  man  the  personal  image 
of  his  Maker. 

1.  iV/> rational  1.  He  bears  first  of  all  the  rational  image  of  God.  We 
wiage.  have  a  proof  of  this  in  the  fact  formerly  referred  to,  that  man 

can  understand  the  world  God  has  made.  How  is  science 
possible,  except  on  the  assumption  that  the  reason  we  find 
in  ourselves  is  the  same  in  kind  as  the  reason  which  expresses 
itself  in  the  universe.  The  argument  is  the  same  as  if  we 
were  set  to  translate  a  book  written  in  a  foreign  language. 
The  first  condition  of  success  in  that  attempt — the  postulate 
with  which  we  set  out — is  similarity  of  intelligence  between 
the  man  who  wrote  the  book,  and  ourselves  who  seek  to 
decipher  its  meaning.  If  his  reason  were  of  a  totally 
different  kind  from  ours,  the  attempt  to  understand  him 
would  be  hopeless.  Precisely  the  same  condition  applies  to 
the  possibility  of  our  knowledge  of  the  world.  Eeason  in  man 
and  the  reason  expressed  in  nature  must  be  the  same  in  kind, 
or  no  relation  between  them  could  be  established.  Christian 
theology  expresses  this  by  saying  that  the  world  is  created  by 
the  Logos,  a  term  which  means  at  once  reason  and  word. 

2.  His  moral  2.  Man  bears  God's  moral  image,  nob  now  in  the  posses- 
tmage.  g-^^  ^^  actual  righteousness,  but  in  the  possession  of  the 
(i)  The  power  indestructiblc  elements  of  a  moral  nature.  (1)  He  is  a  being 
of  mora  ^\^  the  powcr  of  moral  knowledge  ;  reason,  in  other  words,  is 

knowledge.  ^  &    >  '  ' 

the  source  to  him,  not  only  of  principles  of  knowledge  but 
of  laws  of  duty.  The  idea  of  the  good,  and  with  it  the  moral 
"ought"  or  ethical  imperative,  is  part  of  his  constitution.  His 
moral  ideal  may  vary  with  the  degree  of  his  development  and 
culture ;  but,  throughout,  man  is  a  being  who  distinguishes 
good  and  evil,  and  who  recognises  the  obligation  to  obey  the 
good  and  to  eschew  the  evil.  In  this  he  proclaims  himself  a 
subject  of  moral   law,   and  a   being  with   a    moral  destiny. 

(2)  Thepower  (2)  He  is  a  free,  spiritual  cause,  i.e.  he  has  moral  freedom. 

of  moral         j  speak  again  not  of  man  as  at  present  he  actually  is,  with 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  165 

his  freedom  sadly  impaired  through  sin,  but  of  man  in  the 
constitutive  elements  of  his  nature.  And  as  a  free,  spiritual, 
self-determining  cause,  standing  at  the  summit  of  nature, 
man  is  again  in  a  very  marked  sense  the  image  of  his  Maker. 
It  is  this  power  of  will  and  self-decision  in  man  which  most 
of  all  constitutes  him  a  person.  Through  it  he  stands  out 
of  and  above  nature's  sequences,  and  can  react  on  and  modify 
them.  He  is,  as  some  have  chosen  to  regard  him,  a  super- 
natural cause  in  the  order  of  nature.^  It  is  surely  of  little 
use  to  deny  the  possibility  of  miracle,  when  every  human 
volition  is  a  species  of  miracle — a  new,  hyperphysical  cause 
interpolated  in  the  chain  of  physical  events,  and  giving  them 
a  new  direction.  (3)  Man  is  a  being  with  moral  affections.  (3)  The 
Without  these  he  would  not  be  a  true  imaj^e  of  the  God  who  P^^^^^^^^^  ^f 

.  .  moral 

IS  love.  Summing  up  these  points,  we  recognise  in  man  a  affections. 
conscience  which  reveals  moral  law,  a  will  which  can  execute 
moral  purposes,  and  affections  which  create  a  capacity  for 
moral  love.  This  relates  only  to  formal  attributes ;  but  it  is 
now  to  be  remarked  that  the  bearing  of  God's  moral  image 
in  the  full  sense  implies  not  only  the  possession  of  these 
attributes,  but  an  actual  resemblance  to  God  in  character, 
in  holiness  and  love.  In  the  primeval  state — the  status  in- 
tcgritatis  of  the  Biblical  account  ^ — this  possession  of  the  image 
of  God  by  man  can  only  be  viewed  as  potentiality,  though  a 
pure  potentiality,  for  the  perfected  image  could  not  be  gained 
except  as  the  result  of  self-decision  and  a  long  process  of 
development,  if  even  then  without  the  appearance  of  the 
second  Adam  from  heaven.^  It  is  Christ,  not  the  first  Adam, 
who  is  the  ideal  here,  the  model  after  which  we  are  to  be 
renewed  in  the  image  of  Him  who  created  us.  Only  in 
Christ  do  we  see  what  a  humanity  perfectly  conformed  to  the 
Divine  idea  of  it  is. 

1  Cf.  Bushnell,  Nature  and  Supernatural,  pp.  23-25. 

2  See  next  Lecture. 

3  This  is  a  view  already  enunciated  with  great  clearness  by  Irenneus.  Cf. 
Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  i.  pp.  314-316  ;  Art.  "Irenseus"  in  Diet,  of  Christ. 
Biog.  vol.  iii.  ;  and  Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  p.  499. 


1 66    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

3.  His  image         3.  Man  bears  the  image  of  God  in  his  deputed  sovereignty 
7;z sovereignty.  ^^^^  ^^  creatures,  a  sovereignty  which  naturally  belongs  to 
him  in  virtue  of  the  attributes  just  enumerated,  and  of  his 
place  at  the  head  of  creation  already  adverted  to.     To  the 
reality  of  this  sovereignty,  all  man's  conquests  over  material 
conditions,  his  achievements  in  art  and  civilisation,  his  employ- 
ment of  nature's  laws  and  forces  for  his  own  ends,  his  use 
of  the  lower  creatures  for  service  and  food,  etc.,  abundantly 
testify.^ 
The  potential       I  might  add  One  other  mark  of  the  possession  of  the  Divine 
infinitude  of    j^j^gg  j^y  j^g^j^  likewise  involved  in  his  self-conscious  person- 

man  s  nature  <=>        ^  '  1. 

—a  shadow  of  ality.      I  refer  to  what  may  be  called  the  ^potential  infinitude 
Goers  Q^  j^lg  nature.     It  has  often  been   remarked  that  man  could 

attributes.  11. 

not  even  know  himself  to  be  finite,  if  he  were  not  able  m 
thought  to  transcend  the  finite,  and  frame  an  idea  of  the 
Infinite.  It  is  the  strange  thing  about  him,  yet  not  strange 
once  we  realise  what  is  implied  in  the  possession  of  a  thinking 
nature,  that  though  finite,  hedged  round  on  every  side  by  the 
limitations  of  the  finite,  he  yet  shows  a  constant  impulse  to 
transcend  these  limitations,  and  ally  himself  with  the 
Infinite.  Through  this  peculiarity  of  his  nature,  there  is 
none  of  God's  infinite  attributes  which  does  not  find  a 
shadow  in  his  soul.  How  else  could  Carlyle,  e.g.,  fill  his 
pages  with  references  to  the  eternities,  the  immensities,  etc., 
in  which  man's  spirit  finds  its  awful  home  ?  Is  a  being  w^ho 
can  form  the  idea  of  eternity  not  already  in  affinity  with  the 
Eternal,  in  a  sense  His  image  ?  Man  is  not  omnipresent,  but 
is  there  not  a  shadow  of  God's  omnipresence  in  those  thoughts 
of  his  that  roam  through  space,  and  find  a  satisfaction  in  the 
contemplation  of  its  boundlessness  %  He  is  not  omniscient, 
but  is  not  his  desire  for  knowledge  insatiable  ?  The  same 
spurning  of  bounds,  the  same  illimitableness,  is  seen  in  all  his 
desires,  aims,  ideals,  hopes,  and  aspirations.  This  shows  the 
folly  of  the  contention  that  because  man  is  finite,  he  is  cut 

^  On  the  whole  subject  of  the  image  of  God  in  man,  cf.   Laidlaw's  Bihle. 
Doctrine,  of  Man,  Lect.  III.  (Cunningham  Lectures). 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  167 

off  from  the  knowledge  of  the  Infinite.  The  objection  seems 
to  turn  on  the  thought  that  there  is  a  physical  bigness  in  the 
idea  of  infinity  which  prevents  the  mind  from  holding  it.  It 
might  as  well  be  contended  that  because  the  mind  is  cooped  up 
within  the  limits  of  a  cranium  only  a  few  inches  in  diameter, 
it  cannot  take  account  of  the  space  occupied,  say  by  the  solar 
system,  or  of  the  distance  between  the  earth  and  the  sun ! 

In  thus  affirming  the  spiritual  nature  and  dignity  of  man,  The  Christian 
and  a  sonship  to  God  founded  thereon,  it  was  inevitable  that  ""^^"^fPP^^^^ 

^  itself  to 

the  Christian  view  should  meet  with  keen  opposition  ixom.  Materialism: 
the  modern    anti-supernaturalistic  tendency,  which    resrards  ^^^^^'^^^^^^^^^ 

tendency  of 

with  extreme  disfavour  any  attempt  to  lift  man  out  of  the  modem 
ranks  of  nature,  and  the  prevailing  bias  of  which  is  strongly  ^^^^^f^^- 
towards  Materialism.  In  this  spirit  Professor  Huxley  has 
told  us  that  "  anyone  who  is  acquainted  with  the  history  of 
science  will  admit  that  its  progress  has,  in  all  ages,  meant, 
and  now  more  than  ever  means,  the  extension  of  the  province 
of  what  we  call  matter  and  causation,  and  the  concomitant 
banishment  from  all  regions  of  human  thought  of  what  we 
call  spirit  and  spontaneity."  ^  The  materialistic  hypothesis 
has  wide  currency  at  the  present  day,  though  it  is  difficult  to 
see  how  any  sober  mind,  reflecting  on  the  patent  difference 
between  mental  and  physical  phenomena  could  ever 
suppose  that  it  was  adequate,  or  could  imagine  that  by  its 
aid  it  had  got  rid  of  "  spirit."  As  involving  the  denial  of 
the  existence  of  a  spiritual  principle  in  man,  distinct  from 
the  body,  this  hypothesis  is  manifestly  in  contradiction  with 
the  Biblical  doctrine  just  explained,  and  on  this  account 
claims  a  brief  consideration. 

The  great  fact  on  which  every  theory  of  Materialism  strikes  Materialism 
is,  of  course,  the   fact   of  consciousness.      Life,   unattended  ^^^\^^  °^^  ^  ^ 

'  '  '  ^      rock  of 

by  sensation,  presents  a  great  enough  difficulty  to  the  theorist  consciousness. 
who  would    explain    everything    on    mechanical    principles,^ 

1  Lay  Sermons,  "On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life,"  p.  156. 

2  Kant  has  said  that  the  attempt  to  explain  the  world  on  mechanical  prin- 
ciples is  wrecked  on  a  caterpillar. 


1 68    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


I.   Grosser 
form  of 
Materialism 
— mind  and 
brain  ide7iti- 
fied  {Mole- 
schotiy  Vogt^ 
etc. ). 


but  when  consciousness  enters  the  difficulty  is  insuperable.^ 
It  is,  at  the  same  time,  no  easy  matter  to  bind  down  the 
advocates  of  the  materialistic  theory  to  a  clear  and  con- 
sistent view. 

1.  There  is  the  crass,  thorough -going  Materialism  which 
literally  identifies  brain  with  mind,  and  the  movements  of 
the  brain  with  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  which  we  are 
aware  in  consciousness.  Brain  action,  on  this  hypothesis,  is 
thought  and  feeling.  "  The  brain,"  says  Cabanis,  "  secretes 
thought,  as  the  liver  secretes  bile."  This  is  the  crude  theory 
of  writers  like  Moleschott,  Yogt,  and  Biichner,  but  it  is  too 
manifestly  absurd  —  it  too  palpably  ignores  the  striking 
differences  between  mental  and  physiological  facts — to  be 
accepted  by  more  cautious  scientists  without  qualification. 
Brain  movements  are  but  changes  of  place  and  relation  on 
the  part  of  material  atoms,  and,  however  caused,  are  never 
more  than  motions ;  they  have  nothing  of  the  nature  of 
thought  about  them.  "  It  is  absolutely  and  for  ever  incon- 
ceivable," says  the  distinguished  German  physiologist,  Du 
Bois-Eeymond,  "  that  a  number  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  nitrogen, 
and  oxygen  atoms  should  be  otherwise  than  indifferent  to 
their  own  positions  or  motions,  past,  present,  or  future.  It 
is  utterly  inconceivable  how  consciousness  should  result  from 
their  joint  action."  ^  There  is,  accordingly,  general  agreement 
among  scientific  thinkers  that  the  physical  changes  and  the 
mental  phenomena  which  accompany  them  are  two  distinct 

1  Du  Bois-Reymond,  who  himself  favours  Materialism,  specifies,  in  his  Die 
Sleben  Weltrdthsel  (The  Seven  Enigmas  of  the  World),  seven  limits  to  the 
materialistic  explanation  of  Nature.     These  are  : 

1.  The  Existence  of  Matter  and  Form. 

2.  The  Origin  of  Motion. 

3.  The  Origin  of  Life. 

4.  The  Appearance  of  Design  in  Nature. 

5.  The  Existence  of  Consciousness. 

6.  Intelligent  Thought  and  the  Origin  of  Speech. 

7.  The  Question  of  Free- Will. 

See  the  account  of  this  work  in  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology  and  Modern 
Thoiujht,  from  which  I  take  the  list  (p.  52).  Enigmas  1,  2,  and  5,  Du  Bois- 
Reymond  regards  as  insoluble. 

^  Lecture  on  Die  Grenzen  des  Naturerhennens.     Leipsic,  1872. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  169 

sets  of  facts,  which  require  to  be  carefully  kept  apart.     *'  The  -    - 

passage  from  the  physics  of  the  brain  to  the  corresponding 
facts  of  consciousness/'  says  Professor  Tyndall,  "is  unthink- 
able."^ "I  know  nothing,  and  never  hope  to  know  anything," 
says  Professor  Huxley,  "  of  the  steps  by  which  the  passage 
from  molecular  movement  to  states  of  consciousness  is 
effected."  ^  "  The  two  things  are  on  two  utterly  different 
platforms,"  says  Professor  Clifford,  "the  physical  facts  go 
aloDg  by  themselves,  and  the  mental  facts  go  along  by  them- 
selves." ^  So  far  as  this  goes,  it  is  clearly  in  favour  of 
spiritualism,  and  would  seem  in  consistency  to  require  the 
abandonment  of  Materialism.* 

2.  An  escape,  however,  may  seem  to  be  afforded  from  this  2.  Newer 
dilemma   by  consentinpc   to  re<2:ard  matter   as  itself  but  the^^^^^-^ 

"^  .          °  .  °  Materialism 

phenomenal    manifestation    of    some    unknown    power,    as  —Monism 
therefore  not  the  ultimate  reality,  but  only  a  form  or  appear-  ^^t^^^^ss, 
ance  of  it  to  our  senses.     This  is  the  view  held  by  Strauss,  ' 

Lange,  Haeckel,  Spencer,  and  the  scientific  professors  whose 
words  I  have  just  quoted.  "I  have  always,"  says  Strauss, 
"  tacitly  regarded  the  so  loudly  proclaimed  contrast  between 
Materialism  and  Idealism  (or  by  whatever  terms  one  may 
designate  the  view  opposed  to  the  former)  as  a  mere  quarrel 
about  words.  They  have  a  common  foe  in  the  dualism 
which  has  pervaded  the  view  of  the  world  (Weltansicht), 
through  the  whole  Christian  era,  dividing  man  into  body  and 
soul,  his  existence  into  time  and  eternity,  and  opposing  an 

'^Fragments  of  Science,  "Scientific  Materialism,"  p.  121.  In  the  sixth 
edition  the  words  arc — "is  inconceivable  as  a  result  of  mechanics"  (vol.  ii. 
p.  87).  He  goes  on  to  say  that  could  we  "see  and  feel  the  very  molecules  of 
the  brain  ;  were  we  capable  of  folloAving  all  their  motions,  all  their  groupings, 
all  their  electric  discharges  .  .  .  the  chasm  between  the  two  classes  of  pheno- 
mena would  still  remain  intellectually  impassable." 

^Article  on  "Mr.  Darwin's  Critics,"  in  Contemporary  Review,  Nov.  1871, 
p.  464.  Mr.  Spencer  expresses  himself  similarly:  "Can  the  oscillation  of  a 
molecule,"  he  says,  "be  represented  in  consciousness  side  by  side  with  a  nervous 
shock,  and  the  two  be  recognised  as  one  ?  No  effort  enables  us  to  assimilate 
them." — Principles  of  Psychology,  i.  sec.  62. 

^  "Body  and  Mind,"  in  Fortnightly  Revieio,  December  1874. 

^  Cf.  Herbert's  Modern  Realism  Examined,  pp.  89-94 ;  Kennedy's  Natural 
Theology  and  Modern  Thought,  pp.  64-66. 


170    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

eternal  Creator  to  a  created  and  perishable  universe."  ^  But 
whatever  the  change  in  the  theoretic  groundwork,  this  view 
in  practice  comes  to  very  much  the  same  thing  as  the  other. 
It  will  not  be  disputed  that  it  does  so  with  Strauss  and  his 
Use  of  German  allies,  whose  Materialism  is  most  pronounced.^     But 

materia  istic     ^^^     English    savants     also,    while     disclaimino;     the    name 

terminology  by  °  ^ 

British  "  materialists,"   while    maintaining  in    words  the  distinction 

saentists.  between  the  two  classes  of  facts  (mental  and  physical),  while 
careful  to  show  that  a  strict  interpretation  of  the  daio. 
would  land  us  rather  in  a  subjective  Idealism  than  in 
Materialism,^  none  the  less  proceed  constantly  upon  the 
hypothesis  that  mental  facts  admit  of  being  translated  (as 
they  call  it)  into  terms  of  matter,  and  that  thus  only  are 
they  capable  of  being  treated  by  science.*  Thus,  Professor 
Huxley  speaks  of  our  thoughts  as  "  the  expression  of  mole- 
cular changes  in  that  matter  of  life  which  is  the  source  of 
our  other  vital  phenomena,"^  of  consciousness  as  "  a  function 
of  nervous  matter,  when  that  matter  has  attained  a  certain 
degree  of  organisation."^  This  is  carried  out  so  far  as  to  deny 
the  existence  of  any  freedom  in  volition,  or  indeed  of  any 

^  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube,  p.  212. 

^  Strauss  declares  his  thorough  agreement  with  Carl  Vogt  in  his  denial  of  any 
special  spiritual  principle,  p.  210. 

^  Thus,  e.g.,  Huxley:  "For  after  all,  what  do  we  know  of  this  terrible 
'matter,'  except  as  a  name  for  the  unknown  and  hypothetical  cause  of  states  of 
our  own  consciousness?"  ("On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life").  .  .  .  "It  follows 
that  what  I  term  legitimate  Materialism  ...  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  a 
shorthand  Idealism." — "On  Descartes,"  Lai/  Sermons,  pp.  157,  374.  On  the 
relation  of  extreme  Materialism  to  Idealism,  cf.  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology, 
pp.  64-66. 

^  That  at  least  this  terminology  is  preferable.  Professor  Huxley  says  :  "In 
itself  it  is  of  little  moment  whether  we  express  the  phenomenon  of  matter  in 
terms  of  spirit,  or  the  phenomenon  of  spirit  in  terms  of  matter.  .  .  .  But  with 
a  view  to  the  progress  of  science,  the  materialistic  terminology  is  in  every  way 
to  be  preferred." — Lay  Sermons,  "  On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life,"  p.  160. 

^  Lay  Sermons,  "  On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life,"  p.  152.  In  the  same  essay 
he  tells  us :  "As  surely  as  every  future  gi-ows  out  of  past  and  present,  so  will 
the  physiology  of  the  future  extend  the  realm  of  matter  and  law,  till  it  is  co- 
extensive with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with  action." — P.  156. 

^Article  on  "Mr.  Darwin's  Critics,"  in  Contemporary  Review,  Nov.  1871, 
p.  464.  In  his  Lecture  on  "Descartes,"  he  says:  "Thought  is  as  much  a 
function  of  matter  as  motion  is." — Lay  Sermons,  p.  371. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  171 

influence  exercised  by  consciousness  at  all  upon  the  train  of 
physical  events. 

One  advantage  of  this  materialistic-idealistic  form  of  the  Ambiguity  oj 
theory  is,  that  it  enables  the  theorist  to  play  fast  and  loose  ^^'^  ^^X/?^ 
with  language  in  matter  and  mind,  and  yet,  when  called  to  etc. 
account,  to  preserve  an  appearance  of  consistency  by  putting 
as  much  or  as  little  meaning  into  the  term  ''  matter  "  as  he 
pleases.  Professor  Tyndall  is  eloquent  on  the  "  opprobrium  " 
which  we,  in  our  ignorance,  have  heaped  on  matter,  in  which 
he  prefers  to  discern  "  the  promise  and  potency  of  every 
form  of  life."  ^  But  he  has  to  admit  that,  before  he  can  do 
this,  he  has  to  make  a  change  in  all  ordinarily  received 
notions  of  matter.  "  Two  courses  and  two  only  are  possible," 
he  says.  "  Either  let  us  open  our  doors  freely  to  the  con- 
ception of  creative  acts  or,  abandoning  them,  let  us  radically 
change  our  notions  of  matter."  ^  To  which  Dr.  Martineau 
very  justly  replies,  "  Such  extremely  clever  matter,  matter 
that  is  up  to  everything,  even  to  writing  Hamlet,  and  finding 
out  its  own  evolution,  and  substituting  a  moral  plebiscite  for 
a  Divine  government  of  the  world,  may  fairly  be  regarded  as 
a  little  too  modest  in  its  disclaimer  of  the  attributes  of 
mind."  ^  My  chief  objection  to  Dr.  Tyndall,  however,  is  that 
practically  he  does  not  change  his  notion  of  matter,  but 
ignoring  his  own  admission  of  the  "  chasm  intellectually 
impassable  "  *  between  the  two  classes  of  phenomena,  persists 
in  treating  mind  as  if  it  were  capable  of  being  adequately 
represented  by  molecular  changes  of  matter,  in  the  ordinary 
acceptation  of  the  word.  Instead,  however,  of  supporting 
the  view  that  molecular  changes  and  mental  functions  are 
convertible  terms,  science,  with  its  doctrine  of  the  "  con- 
servation of  energy,"  has  furnished,  as  we  shall  now  see,  a 
demonstration  of  the  opposite. 

There  are  three  points  at  which,  in  the  light  of  modern 

^  "  Belfast  Address,"  Fragments  of  Science,  ii.  p.  193. 
2  lUd.  ii.  p.  191. 

^  Religion  as  affected  by  Modern  Materialism,  pp.  14,  15. 
*  Fragments  of  Science,  ii.  p.  87. 


172    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

The  material-  science  and  philosophy,  the  argument  for  Materialism  is  seen 
istic  theory      utterly  to  break  down. 

breaks  down 

in  three  1.  The  first  is  that  which  I  have  just  alluded  to,  the  im- 

respects.  possibility  of  accounting  for  the  phenomena  of  consciousness 

sistent  with  ^^  Consistency  with  the  scientific  doctrine  of  the  "  conserva- 
♦*  conservation  tion  of  energy."  As  already  remarked,  none  but  the  very 
oj  energy.  crasscst  materialists  will  maintain  that  the  molecular  changes 
in  the  brain  are  themselves  the  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
we  are  aware  of  in  consciousness.  What  the  physicist  will 
say  is,  that  these  changes  are  attended  by  certain  conscious 
phenomena  as  their  concomitants.  You  have  the  motions, 
and  you  have  the  conscious  fact — the  thought  or  feeling — 
alongside  of  it.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the  matter  is  put 
by  writers  like  Huxley  and  Tyndall,  who  frankly  confess,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  unbridgeable  gulf  between  the  two  classes 
of  phenomena.  But,  once  this  is  admitted,  the  assertion  that 
mental  phenomena  are  products  of  cerebral  changes  is  seen 
to  come  into  collision  with  the  scientific  law  of  conservation. 
If  mental  phenomena  are  produced  by  material  causes,  it  can 
only  be  at  the  expense  of  some  measure  of  energy.  This, 
indeed,  is  what  is  affirmed.  Physical  energy,  it  is  supposed, 
is  transformed  into  vital  energy,  this  again  into  thought  and 
feeling.  But  this,  it  can  be  shown  to  demonstration,  is  pre- 
cisely what  does  iiot  take  place.  Every  scientific  man  admits 
that  energy  in  all  its  active  forms  is  simply  some  kind  of 
motion  ;  and  that  what  is  called  "  transformation  of  energy  " 
(heat  into  light  or  electricity,  etc.)  is  merely  change  from  one 
kind  of  motion  into  another.  What,  then,  becomes  of  the 
energy  which  is  used  when  some  change  takes  place  in  the 
matter  of  the  brain,  accompanied  by  a  fact  of  sensation  ?  It 
is  all  accounted  for  in  the  physical  changes.  No  scientific 
man  will  hold  that  any  part  of  it  disappears,  passes  over  into 
an  "  unseen  universe."  With  keen  enough  senses  you  could 
track  that  energy  through  every  one  of  its  changes,  and  see 
its  results  in  some  physical  effect  produced.  The  circuit  is 
closed  within  the  physical.     Motions  have  produced  motions, 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  173 

nothing  more,  and  every  particle  of  energy  present  at  the 
beginning  is  accounted  for  in  the  physical  state  of  the  brain 
at  the  end.  There  has  been  no  withdrawal  of  any  portion  of 
it,  even  temporarily,  to  account  for  the  conscious  phenomenon.^ 
This  is  a  new  outside  fact,  lying  beyond  the  circle  of  the 
physical  changes,  a  surplusage  in  the  effect,  which  there  is 
nothing  in  the  expenditure  of  energy  to  explain.  It  is  a 
fact  of  a  new  order,  quite  distinct  from  physical  motions,  and 
apprehended  through  a  distinct  faculty,  self- consciousness. 
But  apart  from  the  nature  of  the  fact,  there  is,  as  I  say,  no 
energy  available  to  account  for  it.  What  energy  there  is, 
is  used  up  in  the  brain's  own  motions  and  changes,  and 
none  is  left  to  be  carried  over  for  the  production  of  this 
new  conscious  phenomenon.  If  this  is  true  of  the  simplest 
fact  of  consciousness,  that  of  sensation,  much  more  is  it 
true  of  the  higher  and  complex  activities  of  self-conscious 
life.2 

2.  The  second  point  on   which  Materialism  breaks  down  2.  Contrast 
is  the  impossibility  of  establishincj  any  relation  between  the  ?,  ^^  ^^  ^    . 

^  •'  T  phenomena  in 

two  sets  of  phenomena  in  respect  of  the  laws  of  their  laws  of  their 
succession.  The  mental  facts  and  the  physical  facts,  we  are  ^^^'^'^^^^^°^^- 
told,  go  along  together.  But  it  is  not  held  that  there  is  no 
relation  between  them.  And  the  relation  is,  according  to 
Professor  Huxley,  that  the  mental  order  is  wholly  determined 
by  the  physical  order,  while,  conversely,  consciousness  is  not 
allowed  to  exercise  the  slightest  influence  on  the  physical  series. 

^  "Motion,"  says  Da  Bois-Reyraond,  *' can  only  produce  motion,  or  transform 
itself  into  potential  energy.  Potential  energy  can  only  produce  motion,  main- 
tain statical  equilibrium,  push,  or  pull.  The  sum-total  of  energy  remains 
constantly  the  same.  More  or  less  than  is  determined  by  the  law  cannot 
liappen  in  the  material  universe ;  the  mechanical  cause  extends  itself  entirely 
in  mechanical  operations.  Thus  the  intellectual  occurrences  which  accompany 
the  material  occurrences  in  the  brain  are  without  an  adequate  cause  as  contem- 
plated by  our  understanding.  They  stand  outside  the  law  of  causality,  and 
therefore  are  as  incomprehensible  as  a  mobile  perpetuum  would  be." — Ueber  die 
Gi-enzen  des  NaturerJcennens,  p.  28  (in  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology,  p.  48). 

2  On  this  argument,  see  Herbert's  Modern  Realism  Examined,  pp.  43,  57  ; 
Kennedy's  Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought,  pp.  48,  49,  79,  80  ;  Harris's 
Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism,  pp.  439-442. 


174   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

Consciousness  he  thinks,  in  men  as  in  brutes,  to  be  "  related  to 
the  mechanism  of  their  body  simply  as  a  collateral  product  of 
its  working,  and  to  be  as  completely  without  any  power  of 
modifying  that  working  as  the  steam-whistle  which  accom- 
panies the  work  of  a  locomotive  engine  is  without  influence 
upon  its  machinery."  ^  The  physical  changes,  in  other  words, 
would  go  on  precisely  as  they  do,  in  obedience  to  their 
own  laws,  were  there  no  such  thing  as  consciousness  in 
existence  ;  and  consciousness  is  simply  a  bye-product  or  reflex 
of  them  without  any  counter  -  influence.  Similarly,  Mr. 
Spencer  says,  "  Impossible  as  it  is  to  get  immediate  proof 
that  feeling  and  nervous  action  are  the  outer  and  inner  faces 
of  the  same  change,  yet  the  hypothesis  that  they  are  so  har- 
monises with  all  the  observed  facts " ;  ^  and  again,  "  While  the 
nature  of  that  which  is  manifested  under  either  form  proves 
to  be  inscrutable,  the  order  of  its  manifestations  throughout 
all  mental  phenomena  proves  to  be  the  same  as  the  order  of 
its  manifestations  throughout  all  material  phenomena."  ^  The 
one  point  clear  in  these  statements  is  that  in  the  materialistic 
hypothesis  the  order  of  mental  phenomena  is  identical  with 
an  order  of  physical  phenomena,  determined  by  purely 
mechanical  conditions.*  Is  this  according  to  fact,  or  is  it  not 
precisely  the  point  where  a  materialistic  explanation  of  mind 
must  for  ever  break  down  ?  On  the  hypothesis,  the  one  set 
of  phenomena  follow  purely  physical  (mechanical,  chemical, 
vital)  laws  ;  but  the  other  set,  or  a  large  part  of  the  other 
set  (the  mental),  follow  laws  of  rational  or  logical  connection. 
Suppose  a  mind,  for  example,  following  out  the  train  of 
reasoning  in  one  of  the  propositions  in  Euclid — or,  better  still, 
think  of   this  demonstration  as  it  was  first  wrought  out  in 

^  "The  Hypothesis  that  Animals  are  Automata,"  in  Fortnightly  Review, 
Nov.  1874,  pp.  575-576.  This  "steam-whistle"  illustration  fails,  as  his  critics 
all  point  out,  in  the  essential  respect  that  a  steam -whistle  does  subtract  a 
portion  of  the  energy  available  for  working  the  machinery,  while  the  production 
of  a  conscious  phenomenon  does  not.  Cf.  Herbert,  pp.  46,  47 ;  Kennedy,  p. 
79,  etc. 

-  Principles  of  Psychology,  i.  sec,  51.  '^  Ibid.  i.  sec.  273. 

*  See  Note  G.  — Mind  and  Mechanical  Causation. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  175 

the  discoverer's  own  mind.  What  is  the  order  of  connection 
here  ?  Is  it  not  one  in  which  every  step  is  determined  by 
the  perception  of  its  logical  and  rationally  necessary  connec- 
tion with  the  step  that  went  before  ?  Turn  now  to  the  other 
series.  The  laws  which  operate  in  the  molecular  changes  in 
the  brain  are  purely  physical — mechanical,  chemical,  vital. 
They  are  physical  causes,  operating  to  produce  physical 
effects,  without  any  reference  to  consciousness.  What  pos- 
sible connection  can  there  be  between  two  orders  so  distinct, 
between  an  order  determined  solely  by  the  physical  laws,  and 
the  foregoing  process  of  rational  demonstration  ?  The  two 
orders  are,  on  the  face  of  them,  distinct  and  separate ;  and 
not  the  least  light  is  cast  by  the  one  on  the  other.  To 
suppose  that  the  physical  laws  are  so  adjusted  as  to  turn  out 
a  product  exactly  parallel  to  the  steps  of  a  rational  demon- 
stration in  consciousness,  is  an  assumption  of  design  so 
stupendous  that  it  would  cast  all  other  proof  of  teleology 
into  the  shade.  I  am  far,  however,  from  admitting  that,  as 
the  materialistic  hypothesis  supposes,  every  change  in  the 
brain  is  determined  solely  by  mechanical,  chemical,  and  vital 
laws.  Granting  that  cerebral  changes  accompany  thought,  I 
believe,  if  we  could  see  into  the  heart  of  the  process,  it  would 
be  found  that  the  changes  are  determined  quite  as  much  by 
mental  causes  as  by  material.  I  do  not  believe,  for  example, 
that  an  act  of  will  is  wholly  without  influence  on  the  material 
sequence.  Our  mental  acts,  indeed,  neither  add  to  nor  take 
from  the  energy  stored  up  in  the  brain,  but  they  may  have 
much  to  do  with  the  direction  and  distribution  of  that 
energy.^ 

3.  A  third  point   on  which   the  materialistic  hypothesis  3.  irrecon- 
breaks  down  is  its  irreconcilability  with  what  is  seen  to  be  ^^^^^^^^^y  '^^^^ 

self-conscioiis- 

implied   in   self-consciousness,   and   with   the   fact   of  vnoYdX  ness  and  moral 
freedom.     To  constitute  self-consciousness  it  is  not  enough  Z''^^^^''^- 
that  there   should    be    a    stream    or    succession  of  separate 
impressions,  feelings,  or  sensations ;  it  is  necessary  that  there 

^  See  Note  H. — Mind  and  Cerebral  Activity. 


176    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

should  be  a  principle  which  apprehends  these  impressions, 
and  relates  them  (as  resembling,  different,  co-existent,  succes- 
sive, etc.)  to  one  another  and  to  itself,  a  principle  which  not 
only  remains  one  and  the  same  throughout  the  changes  but 
is  conscious  of  its  self-identity  through  them.  It  is  not 
merely  the  mental  changes  that  need  to  be  explained,  but 
the  consciousness  of  a  persistent  self  amidst  these  changes. 
And  this  ego  or  self  in  consciousness  is  no  hyperphysical 
figment  which  admits  of  being  explained  away  as  subjective 
illusion.  It  is  only  through  such  a  persistent,  identical  self, 
that  knowledge  or  thought  is  possible  to  us ;  it  is  implied  in 
the  simplest  analysis  of  an  act  of  knowledge.  Were  we 
simply  part  of  the  stream  we  could  never  know  it.^  As 
another  fact  of  our  conscious  life  incompatible  with  subjec- 
tion to  mechanical  conditions,  I  need  only  refer  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  moral  freedom.  In  principle.  Materialism  is 
the  denial  of  moral  freedom,  or  of  freedom  of  any  kind,  and 
with  its  triumph  moral  life  would  disappear.^ 
Ultimate  These  considerations  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to  refute 

refutation  of    Materialism,  but  the  final  refutation  is  that  which  is  given  by 

Materialism—  '  ,      ,  .,  ,  •      ,  i      •        n      i  i      •  «      i  i 

matter  itself    the  general  philosophical  analysis  oi  the  relation  of  thought 
needs  thought   to  existence,  a  subject  on  which  I  do  not  enter  further  than 

to  explain  it.  i         i       i  •        i  •  t  mi  i  t 

I  have  already  done  m  the  previous  Lecture.  Thought,  as  1 
tried  to  show  there,  is  itself  the  'prius  of  all  things ;  and  in 
attempting  to  explain  thought  out  of  matter,  we  are  trying 
to  account  for  it  by  that  which  itself  requires  thought  for 
its  explanation.  Matter,  which  seems  to  some  the  simplest 
of  all  conceptions  to  work  with,  is  really  one  of  the  most 
difficult ;  and  the  deeper  its  nature  is  probed,  whether  on  the 

^  Cf.  Green's  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Book  i.  ;  Lotze's  Microcosnms,  pp.  157, 
163 ;  cf.  Seth's  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  pp.  3-5.  Lotze  puts  the  point 
thus :  "Our  belief  in  the  soul's  unity  rests  not  on  our  appearing  to  ourselves 
such  a  unity,  but  on  our  being  able  to  appear  to  ourselves  at  all.  .  .  .  What  a 
being  appears  to  itself  to  be  is  not  the  important  point ;  if  it  can  appear  anyhow 
to  itself,  or  other  things  to  it,  it  must  be  capable  of  unifying  manifold  pheno- 
mena in  an  absolute  indivisibility  of  its  nature." — Microcosmus,  p.  157. 

^  Cf.  Ebrard's  Christian  Apologetics,  ii.  pp.  77-98  ;  Dorncr's  Christian 
Ethics,  pp.  105-106  ;  Kennedy's  Natural  Theology,  Lecture  V. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN,  177 

physical  or  on  the  metaphysical  side,  the  more  does  it  tend  

to  disappear  into  something  different  from  itself ;  the  more, 
at  any  rate,  is  it  seen  to  need  for  its  explanation  facts  that 
are  spiritual.  It  was  remarked  above  how,  even  in  the  hands 
of  Professors  Huxley  and  Tyndall,  matter  tends  to  disappear 
in  a  subjective  Idealism  ;  the  only  escape  from  this  is  a 
rational  theory  of  knowledge,  which  again  explains  the  con- 
stitution of  the  world  through  rational  categories.  To 
explain  thought  out  of  matter  is,  from  a  philosophical  point 
of  view,  the  crowning  instance  of  a  hysteroii  proteron.^ 

III.  From   the  distinction  thus  shown    to  exist  between  ///.  A/an,  as 
the  spiritual  and  the  material  parts  of  man's  nature,  there  "^^^^  "^  ^^^ 

iJ7iage  of  God, 

results  the  possibility  of   the   soul  surviving  death,  and  the  constituted  for 
foundation   is   laid   for   the   doctrine  of  Immortality.       The  ^''^mortaiity; 

.  •!  T      1  1  •  Biblical  aspect 

consideration  of  the  Biblical  aspect  of  this  subject  will  "^^"i^^^  postponed. 
properly  be  reserved  for  next  Lecture,  where  I  treat  of  the  Voice  of  nature 
connection  of  sin  and  death.  Here  I  will  only  ask  how  far 
nature  and  reason  have  a  voice  to  utter  on  these  two  ques- 
tions :  Is  man  constituted  for  immortality  ?  And  is  there  a 
presumption  that  the  soul  will  survive  death  ?  These  ques- 
tions, it  ought  to  be  observed,  are  not  identical.  The  pro- 
position that  man,  as  a  being  made  in  God's  image,  is  naturally 
destined  for  immortality,  is  not  immediately  convertible  with 
the  other,  the  soul  will  survive  death ;  for  it  is  no  part  of 
the  Biblical  view,  as  we  shall  see  afterwards,  that  death  is  a 
natural  condition  of  man.  Now,  however,  that  death  has  super- 
vened, the  question  arises.  Does  the  soul  still  survive  ?  To  this 
question  also,  as  I  hope  to  show,  both  Old  and  New  Testaments 
give  an  affirmative  answer ;  but  the  complete  Scripture  doc- 
trine of  immortality  means  a  great  deal  more  than  this. 

It  is  a  significant  circumstance  that  the  modern  unbeliev-  Modem 
insj    view   of    the  world   has  no   hope   to   give  us  of  a   life  ^J^^^^^'^  ^f 

^  .  doctrine  of  a 

beyond  the  grave.     With  the  obscuration  of  the  idea  of  Q^q^,  future  life. 
and  the  loss   of  the  sense    of  the  spiritual,  there  has  gone 

^  Cf.  Caird's  Philosojphy  of  Religion,  pp.  94-101. 

12 


178    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIE  W 

also  faith  in  immortality.^  Materialism,  of  course,  is  bound 
to  deny  a  future  life.  The  theories  of  Huxley,  Tyndall,  and 
Spencer  hold  out  just  as  little  hope  of  it,^  though  Mr. 
Fiske,  developing  a  Theism  out  of  the  principles  of  Mr. 
Spencer,  has  developed  also  a  doctrine  of  immortality,  another 
evidence  of  the  connection  of  these  two  beliefs.^  The  hope 
proposed  to  us  in  lieu  of  individual  immortality  is  that  of 
"  corporate  immortality,"  the  privilege  of  joining  the  "  choir 
invisible"  of  those  who  have  laboured  in  the  service  of 
humanity,  though  they  live  now  only  in  the  grateful  memory 
of  posterity.*  Pantheism,  likewise,  forbids  the  thought  of 
personal  immortality,  exalting  instead  the  blessedness  of 
absorption  in  the  Infinite.^     We  cannot,  however,  part  with 

1  Renan  has  said  :  "  No  one  in  business  would  risk  a  hundred  francs  with  the 
prospect  of  gaining  a  million,  on  such  a  probability  as  that  of  the  future  life." 
— Dialogues,  p.  31.  Cf.  Strauss,  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube,  pp.  123-134. 
*'  In  fact,"  he  says,  "this  supposition  is  the  most  gigantic  assumption  that  can 
be  thought  of ;  and  if  we  ask  after  its  foundation,  we  meet  with  nothing  but  a 
Avish.  Man  would  fain  not  perish  when  he  dies  ;  therefore  he  believes  he  will 
not  perish."— Pp.  126,  127. 

2  The  contrast  is  again  marked  with  the  attitude  of  the  last  century  "  Natural 
Religion,"  which  regarded  the  "immortality  of  the  soul"  as  one  of  its  most 
certain  articles.  How  little  assurance  even  Theism,  apart  from  Revelation,  can 
give  on  this  subject  is  seen  in  Mr.  Greg's  statements  in  Creed  of  Christendom^ 
chap,  xvii.;  and  Preface  to  his  Enigmas  of  Life. 

3  Fiske's  Man's  Destiny.  Dr.  Martineau  tells  the  story  that  on  a  report  of 
the  arguments  of  this  book  being  read  to  an  English  friend,  a  Positivist,  on  its 
first  appearance,  his  exclamation  was  :  "What?  John  Fiske  say  that?  Well ; 
it  only  proves,  what  I  have  always  maintained,  that  you  cannot  make  the 
slightest  concession  to  metaphysics,  without  ending  in  a  theology  ! " — Preface 
to  Study  of  Beligion. 

*  "0  may  I  join  the  choir  invisible 

Of  those  immortal  dead  who  live  again 

In  minds  made  better  by  their  presence.  .  .  . 

This  is  life  to  come, 
Which  martyred  men  have  made  more  glorious 
For  us  to  strive  to  follow." 

George  Eliot,  Juhal,  and  other  Poems,  pp.  301-303. 
^  Thus  in  the  Indian  systems,  but  also  in  modern  times.  Spinoza's  Pan- 
theism has  no  room  in  it  for  personal  immortality.  In  Hegel's  system  the 
question  was  left  in  the  same  ambiguity  as  the  question  of  the  Divine  person- 
ality (cf.  Stirling's  Secret  of  Hegel,  ii.  pp.  678-580  ;  Seth's  Hegelianism  and 
Personality,  pp.  149, 150).  On  Schleiermacher's  views,  see  Note  I. — "Schleier- 
macher  and  Immortality." 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  179 

the  hope    of    immortality   without    infinitely   lowering    the  -    - 

whole  pulse  and  worth  even  of  present  existence.^ 

The  only  scientific  plea  on  which  the  possibility  of  im-  Scientific  plea 
mortality  can   be  denied  to  us  is  based  on    the  fact    that-^^^^^'^"-^^^^^^" 

Hon — its 

mind  in   this  life  is   so  intimately  bound    up  with  physio-  untmabieness. 
logical  conditions.     Once  grant,  however,  that  the  thinking 
principle  in  man  is  distinct  from  the  brain  which  it  uses  as 
its  instrument,  and  no  reason  can  be  shown,  as  Bishop  Butler 
demonstrated  long  ago,  why  it  should  not  survive  the  shock 
of  the  dissolution  we  call  death.     Death  need  not  even  be 
the  suspension  of   its   powers.     "  Suppose,"  says   Cicero,  "  a 
person  to  have  been  educated  from  his  infancy  in  a  chamber 
where  he  enjoyed  no  opportunity  of  seeing  external  objects 
but  through  a  small  chink  in  the  window  shutter,  would  he 
not  be  apt  to  consider  this  chink  as  essential  to  his  vision  ? 
and  would  it  not  be  difficult  to  persuade  him  that  his  pros- 
pects would   be    enlarged   by   demolishing  the   walls  of  his 
prison  ?  "  ^     It  may  turn  out,  as  Butler  says,  that  existing  and 
bodily  conditions  are  rather  restraints  on  mind  than  laws  of 
its  essential  nature.^     Even  so  rigid  a  critic  of  evidence  as 
the  late  J.  S.  Mill  admits  that  this  argument  against  immor- 
tality from  the  present  dependence  of  thought  and  feeling  on 
some  action  of  the  bodily  organism,  is  invalid.     "  There  is, 
therefore,"   he    says,    "  in   science,   no   evidence   against  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  but  that  negative  evidence  which 
consists  in    the   absence   of  evidence    in   its   favour.      And 
even    the  negative   evidence   is  not    so   strong    as   negative 
evidence    often    is. "  *       It    may,    at    the    same     time,    be 
questioned,  as  w^e  have  seen,  whether  there  are  not  limits 
to    the    extent    to    which    science    has    demonstrated    the 
dependence    of    the    higher    mental    operations    on    cerebral 
changes.^ 

1  Cf.  p.  188. 

2  Quoted  by  Dugald  Stewart,  Active  and  Moral  Powers^  i.  p.  72  (Collected 
Works).     Cf.  Tusculan  Disputations,  Book  i.  20. 

^  Ajialogy,  i.  chap.  1.  ^  Three  Essays,  p.  201. 

^  See  Professor  Calderwood's  views  in  Note  H. 


i8o    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

Disposition  on      Science,  therefore,  cannot  negative  the  idea  of  immortality, 
part  of  -^^^  j^^g  reason  no  positive  utterance  to  ^\nq  on  this  great 

believers  in  ^  . 

Revelation  to    and  solemn  question  of  future  existence  ?     It  is  not  men  of 
viinimise  the    gcje^cg  only,  but  some  believers  in  Eevelation  also,  who  show 

natural 

evidence  for     ^  disposition  to  minimise  the  indications  and  corroborations 
immortality,    which  nature  affords  of  man's  immortal  destiny.     Mr.  Edward 
White  does  this  in  support  of  his  theory  of  conditional  im- 
mortality ;  ^  but  many  others  also  have  held  the  opinion  that 
this  is  a  question  on  which  reason  has  little   or  nothing  to 
say,  and  which   must  be   determined  solely  by  the  light  of 
If  man  con-     Eevelation.     This  position  seems  to  me  a  hazardous  one  for 
stitute  for      ^  believer  in  Eevelation  to  take  up.     Just  as  in  speaking  of 

tvimortality^  ^  .  . 

the  fact  must    Theism  I  ventured  to  say  that,  if  God  exists,  it  is  inconceiv- 
show  Itself  in   ^^^  ^^^  nature  should  afford  no  evidence  of  His  existence  ;  ^ 

his  7iature  and 

capacities,  SO  I  would  Say  here  that  if  liuman  immortality  be  a  truth, 
it  is  impossible  that  it  should  be  only,  or  merely,  a  truth  of 
Eevelation.  If,  as  he  came  from  his  Creator's  hand,  it  was 
man's  destiny  to  be  immortal,  his  fitness  and  capacity  for 
that  destiny  must  reveal  itself  in  the  very  make  and  con- 
stitution of  his  being,  in  the  powers  and  capabilities  that 
belong  to  him.  If  it  could  really  be  shown  that  in  man's 
nature,  as  we  find  it,  no  trace  of  anything  exists  pointing  to 
a  higher  sphere  of  existence  than  earth  affords,  no  powers 
or  capabilities  for  which  this  earthly  scene  did  not  offer  full 
employment  or  satisfaction,  this  alone,  without  any  other 
argument,  would  be  a  cogent  disproof  of  immortality.  For 
the  same  reason,  immortality  cannot  be  viewed,  as  in  Mr. 
White's  theory,  as  a  mere  external  addition  to  a  nature 
regarded  as  having  originally  no  capacity  or  destination  for 
it,  a  donum  siiperadditum.  It  is  impossible  that  a  being 
should  be  capable  of  receiving  the  gift  of  immortality,  who 
yet  in  the  make  and  constitution  of  his  nature  gives  no 
evidence  that  he  was  destined  for  immortality.  Otherwise 
immortality  loses  all  moral  significance,  and  sinks  to  the  level 
of  a  mere  prolongation  of  existence,  just  as  the  life  of  the 

1  In  his  Life  in  Christ.  2  L^ct.  III.  p.  98. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  i8i 

brute  might  be  prolonged.     Such  evidence,  if  it  exists,  may  -    - 

not  be  sufficient  to  demonstrate  man's  immortality,  but  it  will 
show  that  the  make  and  constitution  of  his  nature  points  in 
that  direction,  that  immortality  is  the  natural  solution  of  the 
enigmas  of  his  being,  that  without  immortality  he  would 
be  a  riddle  and  contradiction  to  himself  and  an  anomaly 
in  the  w^orld  which  he  inhabits.  And  are  there  not  such 
proofs  ? 

1.  Our  minds  are  arrested  here,  first,  by  the  fact  that  i.  Universal 
nearly  every  tribe  and  people  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  savage  P^^f^J^/^'^^  of 
and  civilised,  Aas  lield  in  sorae  form  this  belief  in  a  future  state  futtn-e  state : 
of  existence.     This  suggests  that  the  belief  is  one  which  accords  ^P^^(^^'>'''^ 

•IIP  PI  1-Ti  -I-     theory  of  this ; 

With  the  facts  of  human  nature,  and  to  which  the  mind  is  n^  insiM- 
naturally  led  in  its  inquiries.  Assume  the  doctrine  to  be  "^«o'- 
false,  there  is  still  this  fact  to  be  accounted  for — that  nearly 
all  tribes  and  families  of  mankind  have  gone  on  dreaming 
this  strange  dream  of  a  life  beyond  the  grave.^  Mr. 
Spencer,  of  course,  has  a  way  of  explaining  this  belief  which 
would  rob  it  of  all  its  worth  as  evidence.  The  hypothesis  is 
a  very  simple  one.  Belief  in  a  future  state,  according  to  it, 
is  simply  a  relic  of  superstition.  It  had  its  origin  in  the 
fancies  of  the  savage  who,  from  the  wanderings  of  his  mind 
in  sleep,  and  supposed  appearances  of  the  dead,  aided  by  such 
facts  as  the  reflection  of  his  image  on  the  water  and  the 
appearance  of  his  shadow,  imagined  the  existence  of  a  soul, 
or  double,  separable  from  the  body,  and  capable  of  surviving 
death.2  Were  I  discussing  this  theory  at  length,  I  would  like 
to  put  in  a  word  for  Mr.  Spencer's  savage.  I  would  like  to  ask, 
first,  Is  Mr.  Spencer  so  sure  that  this  is  the  whole  explanation 
of  that  singularly  persistent  instinct  which  leads  even  savage 
minds  to  cling  so  tenaciously  to  the  idea  of  a  future  life  ?    May 

1  Cicero  urges  the  argument  in  The  Tusculan  Disputations,  Book  i.  13. 
For  modern  illustrations  cf.  Max  Miiller's  Anthropological  Religion, 
Lecture  V.  ;  Dawson's  Fossil  Men  and  their  Modern  Representatives, 
chap.  X.,  etc. 

^  Eccles.  Institutions,  chaps,  i.,  xvi.  :  Strauss  has  a  similar  theory,  Der  alte 
und  der  neue  Glaube,  p.  124.  . 


i82    THE  POSTULATE  OE  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

it  not  be,  though  a  philosopher  may  not  care  to  take  account 
of  them, 

•*  That  even  in  savage  bosoms, 
There  are  longings,  yearnings,  strivings, 
For  the  good  they  comprehend  not," 

and  that,  sometimes  at  least, 

*'  The  feeble  hands  and  helpless, 
Groping  blindly  in  the  darkness, 
Touch  God's  right  hand  in  that  darkness, 
And  are  lifted  up  and  strengthened  ?  "  ^ 

And  I  would  like,  second,  to  ask.  Is  the  savage  after  all  so 
illogical  as  Mr.  Spencer  would  make  him  out  to  be  ?  Allow 
that  he  has  crude  notions  of  apparitions  and  dreams,  this  is 
not  the  essential  point.  The  essential  point  is  that,  from  the 
activity  of  his  mind  in  thinking  and  dreaming,  he  infers  the 
working  of  a  power  within  him  distinct  from  his  body.  Is 
he  so  far  wrong  in  this  ?  I  do  not  think  we  do  justice 
always  to  the  workings  of  the  savage  mind.^  The  savage 
knows,  to  begin  with,  that  there  is  a  something  written  within 
him  which  thinks,  feels,  acts,  and  remembers.  He  does  not 
need  to  wait  on  dreams  to  give  him  that  knowledge.^  The  step 
is  natural  to  distinguish  this  thinking  something  from  his 
hands  and  head  and  body,  which  remain  after  its  departure.* 
Going  further,  he  peoples  nature  with  spiritual  agents  after 
the  type  of  the  mind  he  finds  within  himself.  Here,  there- 
fore, we  have  the  clear  yet  not  reasoned  out  distinction 
between  body  and  spirit,  and  this,  in  connection  with  other 
hopes,  instincts,  and  aspirations,  readily  gives  birth  to  ideas 

^  Longfellow's  Hiawatha,  Introduction. 

2  Max  Miiller  says  :  '  *  We  cannot  protest  too  strongly  against  what  used  to 
be  a  very  general  habit  among  anthropologists,  namely,  to  charge  primitive 
man  with  all  kinds  of  stupidities  in  his  early  views  about  the  soul,  whether  in 
this  life  or  the  next." — Anthropological  Religion,  p.  218. 

^  Cf.  Max  Mliller's  discussion  of  the  "shadow"  and  "dream"  theory  in 
Anthropological  Religion,  pp.  218-226.  "Before  primitive  man  could  bring 
himself  to  imagine  that  his  soul  was  like  a  dream,  or  like  an  apparition,  it  is 
clear  that  he  must  already  have  framed  to  himself  some  name  or  concept  of 
soul."— P.  221. 

^  Cf.  Max  Muller,  Anthropological  Religion,  pp.  195,  281,  337-338.  "  It  was 
a  perfectly  simple  process  :  what  may  almost  be  called  ^  mere  process  of  sub- 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN,  183 

of  future  continued  existence.  But,  however  it  may  be  with 
the  savage,  how  absurd  it  is  for  Mr.  Spencer  to  assume  that 
the  mature  and  thinking  portion  of  mankind  have  no  better 
foundation  for  their  belief  than  is  implied  in  these  vulgar 
superstitions  which  he  names !  You  sit  at  the  feet  of  a 
Plato,  and  see  his  keen  intellect  applied  to  this  subject ;  you 
listen  to  the  eloquence  of  a  Cicero  discoursing  on  it;^  you  are 
lifted  up  by  the  grand  strains  of  the  poets  of  immortality. 
You  really  thought  that  it  was  proof  of  the  greater  mental 
stature  and  calibre  of  these  men  that  they  speculated  on  such 
themes  at  all,  and  expressed  themselves  so  nobly  in  regard  to 
them.  But  it  turns  out  you  are  mistaken.  You  and  they 
have  miserably  deceived  yourselves ;  and  what  seemed  to  you 
rational  and  ennobling  belief  is  but  the  survival  of  supersti- 
tions, born  of  the  dreams  and  ghost  fancies  of  the  untutored 
savage  ! 

2.  But  let  us  leave  the  savage,  and  look  at  this  subject  in  2.  Rational 
the   light   of   the    higher  considerations  which    have  in    all  f f^"^f .->^'"' 

^  ^  ^  ^  this  belief: 

ages  appealed  with  special  force  to  the  minds  of  rational  nature  of 
men.  I  pass  by  here  the  metaphysical  arguments,  which  at  ^^^^'^^^^^• 
most  are  better  fitted  to  remove  bars  to  the  acceptance  of 
the  doctrine  than  to  furnish  positive  proofs  of  it.  The  real 
proofs  are  those  which,  as  already  said,  show  that  the  make 
and  constitution  of  man's  nature  are  not  explicable  on  the 
hypothesis  that  he  is  destined  only  for  a  few  short  years  of 
life  on  earth,  but  are  such  as  point  to  a  nobler  and  endur- 
ing state   of  existence.       It    is  an  interesting    circumstance 

traction.  There  was  man,  a  living  body,  acting,  feeling,  perceiving,  thinking, 
and  speaking.  Suddenly,  after  receiving  one  blow  with  a  club,  that  living  body 
collapses,  dies,  putrefies,  falls  to  dust.  The  body,  therefore,  is  seen  to  be 
destroyed.  But  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  the  agent  within  that  body,  who 
felt,  who  perceived,  who  thought  and  spoke,  had  likewise  been  destroyed,  had 
died,  putrefied,  and  fallen  to  dust.  Hence  the  very  natural  conclusion  that, 
though  that  agent  had  separated,  it  continued  to  exist  somewhere,  even  though 
there  was  no  evidence  to  show  how  it  existed  and  wlitre  it  existed." — P.  281. 
See  also  Mr.  Greg,  Preface  to  Enigmas  of  Life,  p.  7  ;  and  Fairbairn's  Studies  in 
Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.  115  ff. 

1  Plato's  Phcedo,  Cicero's  Tmculan  Disputations  and  Dream  of  Scipio,  etc» 
Cf.  Max  Mliller  on  Anthropological  Religion,  Lecture  XL 


1 84    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


his  present 
scene  of 
existence. 


that  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill,  who,  in  his  treatment  of  this  question, 
took  evident  delight  in  reducing  the  logical  evidence  to 
its  minimum,  yet  practically  brings  all  those  arguments 
which  he  had  thrust  out  by  the  door  of  the  head  back  by 
the  door  of  the  heart,  and  uses  them  to  found  the  duty  of 
cherishing  this  hope  of  a  future  life>  What  are  these 
indications  which  point  to  a  fitness  for,  and  are  a  prophecy 
of,  immortality  in  man  ? 
(I)  The  scale  of      (1)  There  is  the  fad  that  the  scale  of  man's  nature  is  too 

man's  nature     ,  n       i  •  ,  j>       •  ,  ti  i         -^  ^ 

too  zreat  for  ^^W^  f^'^  ^^^  present  scene  of  existence.  I  have  already  spoken 
of  that  shadow  of  infinitude  in  man  which  manifests  itself 
in  all  his  thoughts,  his  imaginations,  his  desires,  etc.  Look, 
first,  at  his  rational  constitution.  In  the  ascent  of  the 
mountain  of  knowledge  is  man  ever  satisfied  ?  Does  not 
every  new  height  he  reaches  but  reveal  a  higher  height  ? 
Does  not  every  new  attainment  but  whet  his  appetite  to 
attain  more  ?  Is  any  thirst  more  insatiable  than  the  thirst 
for  knowledge  ?  Is  it  not  the  last  confession  of  ripened 
wisdom  that  man  as  yet  knows  nothing  as  he  would  wish 
to  know  ?  Or  look  at  the  ideas  which  man's  mind  is  capable 
of  containing.  His  mind  spans  the  physical  universe,  and 
ever  as  the  telescope  expands  the  horizon  of  knowledge,  it 
reaches  out  in  desire  for  a  further  flight.  But  there  are 
greater  ideas  than  even  those  of  worlds  and  systems.  His 
mind  can  take  in  the  thought  of  God,  of  eternity,  of  infinity. 
Is  this  like  the  endowment  of  a  creature  destined  only  for 
threescore  years  and  ten  ?  The  same  illimitableness  attaches 
to  imagination.  "  The  use  of  this  feigned  history,"  says 
Lord  Bacon,  speaking  of  poetry,  "is  to  give  some  shadow 
of  satisfaction  to  the  mind  of  man  on  those  points  wherein 
the  nature  of  things  doth  deny  it,  the  world  being  in  pro- 
portion inferior  to  the  soul;  by  reason  whereof  there  is, 
agreeable  to  the  spirit  of  man,  a  more  ample  greatness,  a  more 
exact  goodness,  and  a  more  absolute  variety  than  can  be  found 


1  In 
below. 


the    Essay    on    "  Theism,"    in    Three    Essays    on    Religion.       See 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  185 

in  the  nature  of  things."  ^     Finally,  there  is  desire.     Give  a 
man  all  of  the  world  he  asks  for,  and  he  is  yet  unsatisfied. 

"  I  cannot  chain  my  soul ;  it  will  not  rest 
In  its  clay  prison,  this  most  narrow  sphere. 
It  has  strange  powers,  and  feelings,  and  desires 
Which  I  cannot  account  for  nor  explain, 
But  which  I  stifle  not,  being  bound  to  tinist 
All  feelings  equally,  to  hear  all  sides. 
Yet  I  cannot  indulge  them,  and  they  live, 
Referring  to  some  state  of  life  unknown."  ^ 

This  argument  is  not  met  by  saying,  as  Mill  does,  that 
there  are  many  things  we  desire  which  we  never  get.  This 
may  be  true,  but  the  point  is  that  even  if  we  did  get  all  the 
satisfaction  which  the  earth  could  give  us,  our  desires  would 
still  go  beyond  that  earthly  bound.^ 

"  And  thus  I  know  the  earth  is  not  my  sphere. 
For  I  cannot  so  narrow  me,  but  that 
I  still  exceed  it.""* 

The  argument  is  further  strengthened  by  comparing  man 
with  the  other  creatures  that  tenant  the  earth.  Modern 
science  justly  lays  stress  on  the  constant  relation  subsisting 
between  creatures  and  their  environment.  Throughout  nature 
you  find  the  most  careful  adjustment  of  faculty  to  environ- 
ment. If  there  is  a  fin,  there  is  water ;  if  there  is  an  eye, 
there  is  light ;  if  there  is  a  wing,  there  is  air  to  cleave,  etc. 
But  here  is  a  creature  whose  powers,  whose  capabilities, 
whose  desires,  stretch  far  beyond  the  terrestrial  scene  that 
would  contain  him !  Must  we  not  put  him  in  a  different 
category  ? 

1  Adv.  of  Learning,  Book  ii.  13. 

^  R.  Browning,  Pauline.  [The  text  is  somewhat  altered  in  1889  edition. 
Works,  i.  p.  27.] 

^  "Man,"  says  Kant,  '* is  not  so  constituted  as  to  rest  and  be  satisfied  in  any 
possession  or  enjoyment  whatsoever." — Kritik  d.  Urtheilskraft,  p.  281  (Erd- 
mann's  ed.). 

*  Browning,  Paidine,  as  revised  : 

"How  should  this  earth's  life  prove  my  only  sphere? 
Can  I  so  narrow  sense  but  that  in  life 
Soul  still  exceeds  it?" 

Works,  i.  p.  29.  9 


1 86    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


(2)  Immortal- 
ity involved  in 
the  view  of  life 
as  moral  dis- 
cipline. 


(3)  Immor- 
tality the 
solution  of 
the  enigmas 
of  life;  its  in 
completeness, 
inequities,  etc, 


(2)  The  same  inference  which  follows  from  the  scale  of 
man's  endowments  results  if  we  consider  life  from  the  f)oint 
of  view  of  moral  discipline.  Everything  which  strengthens 
our  view^  of  the  world  as  a  scene  of  moral  government ; 
everything  which  leads  us  to  put  a  high  value  on  character, 
and  to  believe  that  the  Creator's  main  end  in  His  dealings 
with  man  is  to  purify  and  develop  character,  strengthens  also 
our  belief  in  immortality.  The  only  way  we  can  conceive  of 
the  relation  of  nature  to  man,  so  as  to  put  a  rational  meaning 
into  it,  is,  as  Kant  has  shown,  to  represent  it  to  ourselves  as 
a  means  to  the  end  of  his  culture  and  morality.^  Can  we 
believe,  then,  that  God  will  spend  a  lifetime  in  perfecting  a 
character,  developing  and  purifying  it,  as  great  souls  always 
are  developed,  by  sharp  trial  and  discipline,  till  its  very  best 
has  been  evoked,  only  in  the  end  to  dash  it  again  into 
nothingness  ?  What  would  we  think  of  an  earthly  artist 
who  dealt  thus  with  his  works,  spending  a  lifetime,  e.g.,  on  a 
block  of  marble,  evolving  from  it  a  statue  of  faultless  pro- 
portions and  classic  grace,  only  in  the  end,  just  when  his 
chisel  was  putting  its  last  finishing  touches  on  it,  to  seize  his 
mallet  and  dash  it  again  to  pieces.  It  would  stumble  our 
faith  in  God — in  the  "  Divine  reasonableness  "  ^ — to  believe 
that  such  could  be  his  action. 

(3)  A  third  consideration  which  points  in  the  same 
direction  is  that  frequently  insisted  on — the  manifest  incom- 
pleteness  of  the  present  scene  of  things,  both  as  respects 
'  human  character  and  work,  and  as  respects  the  Divine 
administration.  Here,  again,  everything  that  strengthens  our 
faith  in  a  moral  government  of  the  world,  that  impresses  us 
wdth  the  infinite  worth  of  human  personality,  that  intensifies 
our  sense  of  justice  and  injustice,  forces  on  us  the  conviction 


^  Cf.  Kant  on  "The  last  end  of  nature  as  a  teleological  system,"  Kritik  d. 
Urtheihhraft,  pp.  280-285  ;  and  Caird,  Philosophy  of  Kant,  ii.  p.  501. 

2  **For  my  part,"  says  Mr.  Fiske,  **  I  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
not  in  the  sense  in  which  I  accept  the  demonstrable  truths  of  science,  but  as  a 
supreme  act  of  faith  in  the  reasonableness  of  God's  work." — Man's  Destiny, 
p.  116. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN.  187 

that  the  present  life,  with  its  abounding  anomalies,  imperfec- 
tions, and  inequities,  is  not  God's  last  word  to  us  ;  ^  that  there 
is  another  chapter  to  our  existence  than  that  which  closes  on 
earth.  Here  comes  in  the  consideration  which  Kant  urges 
of  the  need  of  prolonged  existence  to  complete  the  fulfilment 
of  our  moral  destiny ;  ^  the  sense  of  accountability  which  we 
all  carry  with  us,  instinctively  anticipating  a  day  of  final 
reckoning ;  the  feeling  of  an  unredressed  balance  of  wrong 
in  the  arrangements  of  life  and  of  society ;  above  all,  the 
sense  of  incompleteness  which  so  often  oppresses  us  when 
we  see  the  wise  and  good  cut  down  in  the  midst  of  their 
labours,  and  their  life-work  left  unfinished.  These  are  the 
"  enigmas  of  life "  for  which  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  any 
solution  is  provided  if  there  is  not  a  future  state  in  which 
life's  mysteries  shall  be  made  clear,  its  unredressed  wrongs 
rectified,  the  righteousness  of  the  good  vindicated,  and  a 
completion  granted  to  noble  lives,  broken  off  prematurely 
here.  Our  faith  in  God  leads  us  again  to  trust  Him,  that 
"  He  that  hath  begun  a  good  work  "  ^  in  us  will  not  leave  it 
unfinished. 

(4)  Finally,  there  is    the  fact  which  all   history  verifies,  (4)  Only 
that  only  under    the  influence  of  this  hope  do  tlie  tiuman  "'^'^'^^  *^^ 

influence  of 

faculties,  even  here,  find  their  largest  scope  and  play.     This  this  hope  do 
was  the  consideration  which,  more  than  any  other,  weighed  ^^^'^  human 

faculties  find 
their  highest 
•^  "There  is  no  reconciling  wisdom  with  a  world  distraught,  scope  and  play 

Goodness  with  triumphant  evil,  power  with  failure  in  the  aim,  t  ^  ^^7/ 

If — (to  my  own  sense,  remember  !  though  none  other  feel  the  same !) — 
If  you  bar  me  from  assuming  earth  to  be  a  pupil's  place. 
And  life,  time, — with  all  their  chances,  changes, — just  probation-space, 
Mine,  for  me  !  " 

Browning,  La  Saisiaz,  "Works,  xiv.  p.  178. 

^  It  should  be  noticed  that  as  Kant  grants  a  "doctrinal  faith"  in  the 
existence  of  God,  as  distinguished  from  theoretical  demonstration  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  moral  proof  on  the  other  (see  Note  F  to  Lecture  III.),  so  he 
admits  also  a  "doctrinal  faith"  in  immortality.  "In  view  of  the  Divine 
wisdom,"  he  says,  "and  having  respect  to  the  splendid  endowment  of  human 
nature,  and  to  the  shortness  of  life,  so  inadequate  for  its  development,  we  can 
find  an  equally  satisfactory  ground  for  a  doctrinal  faith  in  the  future  life  of  the 
human  soul."— Kriiik  d.  r.  Vernunft,  p.  661  (Eng.  trans,  pp.  590-591). 

3  Phil.  i.  6. 


1 88    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

with  the  late  J.  S.  Mill,  in  inclining  him  to  admit  the  hope 
of  immortality.  "  The  beneficial  influence  of  such  a  hope," 
he  says,  in  words  well  worth  quoting,  "  is  far  from  trifling. 
It  makes  life  and  human  nature  a  far  greater  thing  to  the 
feelings,  and  gives  greater  strength  as  well  as  greater 
solemnity  to  all  the  sentiments  which  are  awakened  in  us 
by  our  fellow-creatures,  and  by  mankind  at  large.^  It  allays 
the  sense  of  that  irony  of  nature  which  is  so  painfully  felt 
when  we  see  the  exertions  and  sacrifices  of  a  life  culminating 
in  the  formation  of  a  wise  and  noble  mind,  only  to  disappear 
from  the  world  when  the  time  has  just  arrived  at  which  the 
world  seems  about  to  begin  reaping  the  benefit  of  it.  .  .  . 
But  the  benefit  consists  less  in  the  presence  of  any  specific 
hope  than  in  the  enlargement  of  the  general  scale  of  the 
feelings ;  the  loftier  aspirations  being  no  longer  kept  down 
by  a  sense  of  the  insignificance  of  human  life — by  the  dis- 
astrous feeling  of  '  not  worth  while.' "  ^  The  evolutionist,  it 
seems  to  me,  should,  beyond  all  others,  respect  these  voices 
of  the  soul,  this  natural  and  unforced  testimony  of  our 
nature  to  a  life  beyond,  which  does  not  disappear  (as  it  would 
do  were  Mr.  Spencer's  hypothesis  correct),  but  only  grows 
clearer  and  more  solemn,  as  the  history  of  humanity 
advances. 
Conclusion.  I  think,  then,  we  may  conclude  that  reason  does  create  a 

presumption,  and    that   a   very  strong   one,  in   favour  of  a 
future  life.       The  considerations  we  have   urged  prove  the 

^  Cf.  Uhlhorn  in  his  Christian  Charity  in  the  Ancient  Church.  "There  is  an 
idea,"  he  says,  "which  has  been  again  met  with  in  our  own  day,  that  men, 
when  they  first  clearly  come  to  believe  that  human  life  finds  its  end  in  tliis  life 
alone,  would  be  on  that  account  the  more  ready  to  help  one  another,  so  that  at 
least  life  here  below  might  be  made  as  pleasant  to  all  as  possible,  and  kept  free 
from  evil.  But,  in  truth,  the  opposite  is  the  case.  If  the  individual  man  is 
only  a  passing  shadow,  without  any  everlasting  significance,  then  reflection 
quickly  makes  us  decide  :  Since  it  is  of  no  importance  w^hether  he  exist  or  not, 
why  should  I  deprive  myself  of  anything  to  give  it  to  him  ?  ...  It  was  only 
when  through  Christianity  it  was  for  the  first  time  made  known  that  every 
human  soul  possessed  an  infinite  value,  that  each  individual  existence  is  of 
much  more  worth  than  the  whole  world, — it  was  only  then  that  room  was 
found  for  the  growth  of  a  genuine  charity." — Pp.  33,  34  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  2'hree  Essays,  p.  249. 


IN  REGARD  TO  NATURE  AND  MAN  189 

possibility  of  immortality,  and  show  that  the  soul  of  man  is 
naturally  fitted  for  immortality.  We  need  not  claim  that 
they  do  more,  though  they  have  proved  sufficient  to  inspire 
many  of  the  noblest  minds  of  our  race,  even  apart  from  the 
gospel,  with  a  very  steady  persuasion  that  there  is  a  life 
hereafter.  They  cannot  give  absolute  certainty.  They  may 
not  be  able,  apart  from  the  light  of  Eevelation,  to  lift  the 
mind  wholly  above  the  suspicion  that  the  law  of  waste 
and  destruction  which  prevails  here  against  the  body  may 
somewhere  else,  and  finally,  prevail  against  the  soul.  But,  so 
far  as  they  go,  they  must  be  accepted  as  a  powerful  corro- 
boration and  confirmation,  from  the  side  of  nature,  of  the 
Christian  view. 


LECTURE   V. 


Eljt  ^Postulate  of  tJ)e  Cfiristian  Uteto  in  regartr  to 
tlje  &in  antr  ©tsortfer  of  tfje  aEorltr. 


"Therefore,  as  through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
death  through  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all  have 
sinned." — Paul. 

"This  is  a  wonder  to  which  the  worshippers  of  reason  have  not  yet 
given  a  name — the  story  of  the  fall  of  the  first  man.  Is  it  allegory  ? 
history  ?  fable  ?  And  yet  there  it  stands,  following  the  account  of  the 
Creation,  one  of  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  beyond  which  there  is  nothing 
— the  point  from  which  all  succeeding  history  starts.  .  .  .  And  yet, 
ye  dear,  most  ancient,  and  undying  traditions  of  my  race — ye  are  the 
very  kernel  and  germ  of  its  most  hidden  history.  Without  you,  man- 
kind would  be  what  so  many  other  things  are — a  book  without  a  title, 
without  the  first  cover  and  introduction." — Herder. 

"The  existence  of  two  selves  in  a  man,  a  better  self  which  takes 
pleasure  in  the  good,  and  a  worse  self  which  makes  for  the  bad,  is  a 
fact  too  plain  to  be  denied." — F.  H.  Bradley. 

"When  we  speak  of  primitive  man,  we  do  not  mean  man  while  lie 
was  emerging  from  brutality  to  humanity,  '  while  he  was  losing  his  fur 
and  gaining  his  intellect.'  We  leave  that  to  the  few  biologists  who, 
undeterred  by  the  absence  of  facts,  still  profess  a  belief  in  descent  of 
man  from  some  known  or  unknown  animal  species." — Max  Muller. 

"  Are  God  and  Nature  then  at  strife, 
That  Nature  lends  such  evil  dreams  ? 
So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life  ;  .    .   . 

"  '  So  careful  of  the  type  ? '  but  no. 

From  scarped  cliff"  and  quarried  stone 
She  cries,  *  A  thousand  types  are  gone, 
I  care  for  nothing,  all  shall  go. '  " 

Tennyson. 


LECTURE    V. 

THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW  IN  REGAED   TO  THE  SIN 
AND  DISORDER  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Christianity  is  the  religion  of  Eedemption.     As  such,  it  has  Third postu- 
for   its   third  postulate   the  sin   and  disorder  of   the  world/^f  ^-(f^^^ 

^  Christian 

The  existence  of  natural  and  moral  evil  is  one  of  the  darkest,  view— the  sin 
deepest,  and  most  difficult  problems  that  can  occupy  human  <^^f  f^'O'-^^f 

,  ,  of  the  world, 

thought.     It  is  one  which  has  exercised  the  hearts  of  men  in 

all  ages,  one  which  is  often  raised  in  Scripture,  and  which  The  problem  of 

should  warn  us  off  from  light  and  superficial  views  of  the ''''^"7^ ""!' ^ 

^  i-  moral  evil. 

Divine  character  and  purposes.  Its  presence  is  the  great  , 
difficulty  in  the  way  of  a  belief  on  natural  grounds  in  the 
perfect  justice  and  goodness  of  God,  the  obstacle  we  immedi- 
ately encounter  when  we  try  to  persuade  ourselves  that  the 
universe  is  created  and  ordered  by  a  supremely  good  Being. 
So  grave  is  this  difficulty,  even  in  respect  to  natural  evil, 
that  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  declares  "  the  problem  of  reconciling 
infinite  benevolence  and  justice  in  the  Creator  of  such  a 
world  as  this  "  to  be  "  impossible  "  ;  and  adds,  "  The  attempt 
to  do  so  not  only  involves  absolute  contradiction  in  an 
intellectual  point  of  view,  but  exhibits  in  excess  the  revolting 
spectacle  of  a  Jesuitical  defence  of  moral  enormities."  ^  From 
the  natural  point  of  view,  the  assurance  of  God's  perfect 
goodness  must  always  be,  to  some  extent,  an  act  of  faith, 
based  on  the  postulate  of  our  own  moral  consciousness ;  and 
even  this  will  often  find  it  difficult  to  sustain  itself,  since 

^  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  pp.  186-187.    Cf.  pp.  24-41,  112,  etc.    See  Note 
A.  — Defects  in  Creation,  an  Argument  against  Theism. 

13 


194    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


CJiristianity 
does  7iot  create 
this  problem, 
hut  helps  to 
solve  it. 


Natural  evil 
implicated 
with  moral 
evil. 


The  problem 
exists  only  for 
Theism. 


Christianity  alone  imparts  the  moral  consciousness  in  sufficient 
strength  to  uphold  the  faith  required. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  though  this  problem  meets 
us  in  connection  with  the  Christian  view  of  the  world,  it  is 
not  Christianity  that  makes  this  problem.  Natural  and 
moral  evil  is  there  as  a  fact  in  the  universe,  and  would  be 
there  though  Christianity  had  never  been  heard  of.  Christ- 
ianity intensifies  the  problem  by  the  stronger  light  it  casts 
on  the,  character  of  God,  and  the  higher  view  it  gives  of 
man,  but  it  does  not  create  the  problem.  What  it  professes 
to  do  is  to  help  us  to  solve  it.  But  the  problem  is  there  all 
the  while,  and  has  to  be  taken  account  of  by  every  system, 
whether  Christian  or  not.  It  is  a  difficulty  of  philosophy, 
not  less  than  of  theology. 

While,  however,  in  naturalistic  systems  moral  evil  is  apt 
to  fall  behind  natural  evil,  in  Christianity  it  is  the  other  way 
— the  moral  evil  is  throughout  placed  in  the  forefront,  and 
natural  evil  is  looked  at  mainly  in  the  light  of  it.  This  is 
as  it  should  be ;  for  while,  as  we  shall  see,  natural  evil 
presents  an  independent  problem,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
its  existence  is  deeply  implicated  with  the  existence  of  moral 
evil.i  If  we  subtract  from  the  sum  of  suffering  in  the  world 
all  that  is  directly  or  indirectly  caused  by  sin — by  the  play 
and  action  of  forces  that  are  morally  evil — we  shall  reduce 
the  problem  to  very  manageable  dimensions  indeed.  It  is  the 
existence  of  moral  evil  which  is  the  tremendous  difficulty 
from  a  theistic  point  of  view.  I  might  go  further,  and  say 
that  it  is  only  for  a  theistic  system  that  the  problem  of  moral 
evil  properly  exists.^  Materialism  and  Pantheism  may  acknow- 
ledge natural  evil — misfortune,  pain,  sorrow,  misery — but  it  is 
only  by  an  inconsistency  they  can  speak  of  sin.  Both  are 
systems  of  determinism,  and  leave  no  place  for  moral  action. 
There  is,  besides,  in  either  system,  no  question  of  a  theodicy, 
for  there  is  to  them  no  God.     Things  are  as  they  are  by  a 

^  This  is  a  point  which  Mr.  Mill  overlooks. 

^  Cf.  Ott's  Le  ProbUim  du  Mai,  pp.  1-5,  98,  99. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  195 

necessity  of  nature,  which  we  can  neither  account  for  nor  get 
behind.  If  we  could,  indeed,  really  get  rid  of  the  problem  of 
sin  by  adopting  either  of  these  systems,  there  would  be  some 
reason  for  accepting  them.  But  unfortunately  the  problem 
of  moral  evil  is  one  which  refuses  to  be  thus  summarily  got 
rid  of.  Sin  is  there  ;  the  feeling  of  responsibility  and  of 
guilt  is  there;  and  neither  the  heart  nor  the  reason  of 
humanity  will  allow  us  to  treat  them  as  nonentities.  Nor 
does  the  denial  of  God's  existence  really  mitigate  the  difficulty. 
Dark  as  the  problem  of  evil  is,  it  would  be  immeasurably 
darker  if  we  were  compelled  to  believe  that  there  is  no 
infinite  righteousness  and  love  behind,  through  which  a 
solution  of  the  problem  may  ultimately  be  hoped  for.  I 
proceed  to  consider  more  narrowly  what  the  Christian  view 
of  sin  is,  and  how  it  stands  related  to  modern  theories  and 
speculations.  • 

I.  It  is  in  their  respective  relations  to  the  sin  and  disorder  /.  Theprobhjn 
of  the  world,  perhaps  more  than  at  any  other  point,  that  the  ^/'^^^J^^^^^' 
Christian  and  "  modern  "  views  of  the  world  come  to  a  direct  Christian  and 
issue.      On  the  one  hand,  there  are  certain  respects  in  which  ^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^ 

on  this  subject. 

the  Christian  view  finds  unexpected  support  from  the  modern 

view  of  the  world ;  on  the  other,  there  are  certain  respects  in  Respects  in 

which  it  is  fundamentally  at  variance  with  it.     Let  us  briefly  ^^^^"^  ^^^^. 

"  «'   modern  view 

consider  both.  comes  to  the 

There  are  three  respects  in  particular  in  which  the  modern  ^'^PP°^\  ^f*^'-^ 

Christian 

view  of  the  world  comes  to  the  support  of  the  Christian  view  view : 
of  sin. 

1.  The  modern  view  of  things  is  marked  by  a  stronger  i.  stronger 
sense    than   in   former   times   of    the    reality    and    universaV^f^^^^^.^'^^^  ^-^ 

•^  the  universal 

2)resence   of   evil — both   of    natural  evil   and   of    moral    qyH,  preseiice  0/ 
though  moral  evil,  as  was  to  be  expected,  is  regarded  more  ^^^^' 
from  its  side  of  error,  misery,  and  bondage,  than  from  its  side 
of  guilt.     The   modern  view  has  disposed  of  the  superficial 
optimism  of  earlier  times.      The  days  of  a  flimsy  ojotimism, 
wheu  men  demonstrated  to  their  own  satisfaction  that  this 


196    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

was  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and  made  light  of  the 
facts  which  contradicted  their  pleasing  hypothesis,  are  over, 
and  everywhere  there  is  an  oppressive  sense  of  the  weight  of 
the  evils  which  burden  humanity,  and  of  the  unsatisfactoriness 
of  natural  existence  generally.  The  strain  of  modern  thought 
is  pessimistic  rather  than  optimistic.  Its  high-water  mark 
is  not  optimism,  but  what  George  Eliot  prefers  to  call 
"  meliorism."  ^  Herbert  Spencer,  indeed,  still  looks  for  an 
"  evanescence  of  evil,"  as  the  result  of  the  working  of  natural 
and  necessary  laws  of  evolution,^  but  I  do  not  find  that  this 
represents  the  general  temper  of  the  age.  Schopenhauer  and 
Hartmann  have  at  least  this  merit,  that  they  raise  the  question 
of  the  good  or  evil  of  existence  in  a  form  which  makes  it 
impossible  ever  again  to  ignore  it,  or  bury  it  out  of  sight. 
Pessimism,  as  Professor  Flint  has  said,  "like  Macbeth,  has 
murdered  sleep."  ^  All  this  is  a  gain  to  the  Christian  view. 
Hartmann  even  goes  so  far  as  to  find  the  merit  of  Christianity 
in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  system  of  Pessimism.*  Both  systems 
take  for  granted  the  facts  of  existence,  and  both  look  them 
boldly  in  the  face.  But  there  is  this  difference — Christianity 
looks  on  the  world  in  a  spirit  of  hope  ;  Pessimism  looks  on  it 
in  a  spirit  of  despair. 
2.  Abandon-  2.  It  is  an  extension  of  the  same  remark  to  say  that  the 
^^^ntofshaiiow  ^^^^^^   view  of  the  world   has  disposed  effectually  of  the 

views  of  JT  ./ 

inherent  good-  shallow    Eousscau  vicw   of    the    inherent  goodness  of  human 
ness  of  human  ^^^^^^  ^j^j  of  the  eighteenth  century  illumination  dreams  of  a 

nature.  '  °  •^ 

perfectibility   of    man   based   on    education,  and    on   altered 
social  and  political  conditions.^     The  optimistic  and  Pelagian 

^  Cf.  Sully's  Pessimism,  p.  399.     He  adopts  the  term. 

2  Social  Statics,  p.  79.  ■^  Anti-Theistic  Theories,  p.  294. 

"*  Selhstzersetzung  des  Christenthums,  p.  51.  Its  characteristic  mark,  he 
thinks,  is  "the  pessimistic  conviction  of  the  unworthiness  of  this  world  to 
exist."  Schopenhauer's  language  is  similar.  "Let  no  one  think,"  he  says, 
**that  Christianity  is  favourable  to  optimism;  for  in  the  Gospels  world  and 
evil  are  used  as  almost  synonymous."  "The  inmost  kernel  of  Christianity  is 
identical  with  that  of  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism." — Die  Welt  als  Wille,  etc., 
i.  p.  420  ;  iii.  p.  420  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  Schopenhauer  says  :  "  Indeed  the  fundamental  characteristic  and  the  Tpurov 
■^ivlo;  of  Rousseau's  whole  philosophy  is  this,  that  in  the  place  of  the  Christian 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  197 

views  of  human  nature  are  as  completely  discredited  as  the 
optimistic  view  of  the  world  generally.  Kant  struck  this 
deeper  key-note  when,  in  opposition  to  the  preceding 
Eationalism,  he  acknowledged  the  presence  of  a  "  radical  evil " 
in  human  nature,  which  he  could  only  account  for  by  an  act 
of  the  will  above  time.^  The  modern  evolutionary  philosophy 
goes  even  beyond  Christianity  in  its  affirmation  of  the 
dominance  of  the  brute  element  in  man's  being — of  the 
ascendency  of  the  egoistic  over  the  social  impulses  in  the 
natural  man ;  ^  while  the  moralisation  of  humanity  which  it 
anticipates,  in  the  sense  of  a  gradual  subordination  of  the 
former  to  the  latter,  is  admitted  to  be  yet  very  imperfect. 
From  the  side  of  modern  thought,  therefore,  there  is  no 
hesitation  in  admitting,  what  Christianity  also  affirms,  that 
the  animal  in  man  has  an  undue  preponderance  over  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual ;  that  the  will,  even  in  the  best  of 
men,  is  hampered  and  fettered  by  impulses  of  the  lower 
nature  to  a  degree  which  often  evokes  the  liveliest  expressions 
of  shame  and  self-reproach ;  that  society  is  largely  ruled  by 
egoistic  passions  and  aims.  The  law  in  the  members 
warring  against  the  law  in  the  mind  ^ — in  a  sense,  a  natural 

doctrine  of  original  sin,  and  the  original  depravity  of  the  human  race,  he  puts 
an  original  goodness  and  unlimited  perfectibility  of  it,  which  has  only  been  led 
astray  by  civilisation  and  its  consequences,  and  then  founds  upon  this  his 
optimism  and  humanism."— Z)ie  Wdt  als  Wille,  etc.,  iii.  p.  398. 

^  Die  Religion  innerhalh  der  Grenzen  der  hlossen  Vernunft,  Book  i. — 
"On  the  Indwelling  of  the  Evil  Principle  along  with  the  Good,  or  on 
the  Radical  Evil  in  Human  Nature."  Cf.  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Kant, 
ii.  pp.  566-568. 

2  Mr.  Fiske  says: — "Thus  we  see  what  human  progress  means.  It  means 
throwing  off  the  brute-inheritance,— gradually  throwing  it  off  through  ages  of 
struggle  that  are  by-and-by  to  make  struggle  needless.  .  .  .  The  ape  and  the 
tiger  in  human  nature  will  become  extinct.  Theology  has  had  much  to  say 
about  original  sin.  This  original  sin  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  brute- 
inheritance  which  every  man  carries  with  him,  and  the  process  of  evolution  is 
an  advance  toward  true  salvation." — Man's  Destiny,  p.  103. 

' '  Arise  and  fly 
The  reeling  Faun,  the  sensual  feast ; 
Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast. 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die." 

Tennyson,  In  Memoriam. 

3  Rom.  vii.  23. 


198   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

depravity  and  "  original  sin  " — has  its  recognition  in  modern 

science  and  philosophy. 
3.  Recognition       3.  In  the  modern  view  of  the  world  we  have  the  fullest 
of  the  organic  recoofnition  of  the  orqanic  principle  in  human  life,  and  of  the 

principle  zn  ^  .     . 

human  life:     corollary  of  this  in  heredity.     This,  which  is  the  correction  of 
heredity.  ^^iQ  individualistic  view  of  human  nature  which  prevailed  in 

last  century,  I  take  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  gains  of  modern 
thought  for  the  right  understanding  of  the  Christian  doctrines 
both  of  sin  and  of  Eedemption.  The  Christian  view  is  one 
which  gives  its  rightful  place  alike  to  the  individual,  and  to 
the  organic  connection  of  the  individual  with  the  race ;  and 
it  is  the  latter  side  of  the  truth  which  modern  thought  has 
done  so  much  to  further.  Eather,  perhaps,  I  should  say 
that  both  sides  are  being  brought  into  strong  prominence ; 
for  if  there  never  was  so  much  stress  laid  on  the  connection 
of  the  individual  with  society,  neither  was  there  ever  so  much 
said  about  individual  rights.  The  former  idea,  at  all  events, 
is  now  thoroughly  incorporated  into  modern  habits  of  think- 
ing, under  the  name  of  the  "  solidarity  "  of  the  race.^  There 
is  an  individual  life,  and  there  is  a  social  life  in  which  we  all 
share.  The  race  is  an  organism,  and  the  individual,  if  we 
may  so  speak,  is  a  cell  in  the  tissue  of  that  organism,  indis- 
solubly  connected  for  good  or  evil  with  the  other  cells  in  the 
unity  of  a  common  life.^  From  this  follows  the  conception 
of  heredity,  which  plays  so  important  a  part  in  modern 
theories.  Man  is  not  simply  bound  up  with  his  fellows 
through  the  external  usages  and  institutions  of  society. 
"  He  has  been  produced  by,  and  has  become  a  part  of 
them  ...  he  is  organically  related  to  all  the  members  of 
the  race,  not  only  bone  of  their  bone  and  flesh  of  their 
flesh,  but  mind  of  their  mind."  ^  He  is  a  bundle  of  inherited 
tendencies,  and  will  in  turn  transmit  his  nature,  with  its 
new    marks    of    good    and    evil,   to    those   who    come    after 

^  The  word,  I  believe,  has  come  from  Comte. 

-  Cf.  Stephen's  Science  of  Ethics,  chap.  iii.  sec.  4,  "Social  Tissue." 

2  Sorley's  Ethics  of  Naturalism,  pp.  123,  135. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  199 

him.^  It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  conception  of  heredity, 
and  of  the  organic  unity  of  the  race,  is  but  the  scientific 
expression  of  a  doctrine  which  is  fundamental  to  the 
Scriptures,  and  which  underlies  all  its  teaching  about  sin 
and  salvation. 

In  respect  of  the  points  just  named,  therefore,  it  may  be  Modem  vieiv 
affirmed  that  the  modern  view  of  the  world  is  largely  in  ^^.f  ^f f. 
agreement  with  Christianity.  We  may  not  agree  Yi\\h  denial  of 
Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann  that  Christianity  is  a  system  of  o^^S^^^^  ^^"' 
Pessimism ;  but  we  may  admit  that  Pessimism,  in  so  far  as  it 
recognises  that  the  world  is  in  an  evil  state,  is  far  truer  to 
facts  and  to  Christianity  than  the  superficial  Optimism,  the 
shallow  perfectionism,  and  the  Pelagian  denial  of  original  and 
inherited  sin,  which  it  helped  to  displace.  In  the  respect  last 
named,  indeed,  modern  thought  is  nearer  to  Christianity  than 
some  Christian  systems  themselves.  Eitschl,  for  example, 
teaches  that  sin  consists  only  in  acts,  and  not  in  states  and 
dispositions  of  the  heart ;  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
original  or  inherited  sin ;  that  sin  is  not  transmissible  by 
nature,  but  only  through  education,  influence,  the  reciprocal 
action  of  individuals  in  society,  etc.^  But  in  maintaining  this, 
he  comes  into  conflict,  not  merely  with  texts  of  Scripture,  but 
with  the  whole  modern  conception  of  the  organic  union  of  the 
race.  Universal  sin, — sin  which  does  not  consist  merely  in 
acts,  but  springs  from  deep-seated  causes  in  the  heart,  the 
effects   of  which,  both   bodily  and   mental,   are   hereditarily 

^  Perhaps  the  most  forcible  illustrations  of  heredity  are  to  be  found  in 
Maudsley's  works.  "Most  certain  is  it,"  he  says,  "  that  men  are  not  bred  well 
or  ill  by  accident,  little  as  they  reck  of  it  in  practice,  any  more  than  are  the 
animals,  the  select  breeding  of  which  they  make  such  a  careful  study ;  that 
there  are  laws  of  hereditary  action,  working  definitely  in  direct  transmission  of 
qualities,  or  indirectly  through  combinations  and  repulsions,  neutralisations 
and  modifications  of  qualities  ;  and  that  it  is  by  virtue  of  these  laws  determin- 
ing the  moral  and  physical  constitution  of  every  individual  that  a  good  result 
ensues  in  one  case,  a  bad  result  in  another." — Body  and  Will,  p.  248. 

2  Recht.  und  Ver.  iii.  pp.  317-332  (3rd  ed.).  "As  a  personal  propensity  in 
the  life  of  each  individual,"  he  says,  "it  originates,  so  far  as  our  observation 
reaches,  out  of  the  sinful  desire  and  action  which  as  such  finds  its  adequate 
ground  in  the  self-determination  of  the  individual  will." — P.  331. 


200   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

transmitted, — these  I  take  to  be  conceptions  which  neither 
Eitschl  nor  any  other  will  now  be  able  to  overthrow.^ 
Fundamental       When  all  this  is  said,  however,  it  must  still  be  granted 
difference        ^^^  ^-j^g  most  fundamental  difference  exists  between  the  two 

between  Chris- 

tianand         views — the   Christian   and   the   modern.      The   difference   is 

modern  views,  partly  one  as  to  the  nature  of  sin,  and  it  runs  up  into  a 

difference  as  to  its  origin.     The  Christian  view  of  sin  is  not 

only  infinitely  deeper  and  more  earnest  than  in  any  current 

conception  apart  from  Christianity ;  but  it  is,  as  I  formerly 

remarked,  profoundly  modified  by  the  difference  in  the  views 

of  God  and  of  man.     The  first  thing  we  have  to  do  here  is 

to  secure  clearly  the  Christian  idea  of  sin ;  then,  when  we 

have  done  this,  and  asked  whether  it  is  verified  in  conscience 

and   experience,   we   are    prepared   to  judge   of    theories   of 

origin. 

The  Christian      I  lay  it  down  as  a  first  principle  that,  in  the  Christian 

^/^/    i"T~    "^^^'^j  ^^^  ^^  ^^^^  which   absolutely  ouylit  not  to  le}     How 

absolutely        that  which  absolutely  ought  not  to  be  is  yet  permitted  to 

ought  not  to  be :  ^^:^^^  under  the  government  of  a  wise  and  holy  God    is  a 

Its  presupposi' 

tions.  problem  we  may  not  be  able  to  solve ;  but  the  first  thing  to 

do  is  to  hold  firmly  to  the  conception  of  sin  itself.  Sin,  as 
such,  is  that  which  unconditionally  ought  not  to  be,  which 
contradicts  or  infringes  upon  an  unconditional  law  of  right, 
and  therefore  can  only  be  understood  in  the  light  of  that 
which  ought  to  be — of  the  moral  good.^     The  Christian  view 

^  Mr.  J.  J.  Murphy  says  of  Original  Sin  :  "  It  is  not  a  revealed  doctrine,  but 
an  observed  fact ;  a  fact  of  all  human  experience,  and  witnessed  to  as  strongly 
by  classical  as  by  Biblical  writers,  as  strongly  by  heathens  and  atheists  as  by 
Christians." — Sckntijic  Basis  of  Faith,  p.  262.  Pfleiderer  speaks  of  "the 
undeniable  fact  of  experience,  that,  from  the  very  dawn  of  moral  life,  we  find 
evil  present  in  us  as  a  power,  the  origin  of  which  accordingly  must  be  beyond 
the  conscious  exercise  of  our  freedom,"  as  "a  fact  on  which  indeterminism, 
Pelagian  or  rationalistic,  must  ever  suffer  shipwreck." — Beligio7isphilosophie, 
iv.  p.  28  (Eng.  trans. ). 

^  Hegel  also  uses  this  formula,  but  ambiguously.  "What  ought  not  to  be," 
means  with  Hegel,  "what  ought  to  be  done  away."  Cf.  Julius  Miiller,  Chris- 
tian Doctrine  of  Sin,  i.  p.  322  (Eng.  trans.).     See  on  Hegel's  views  later. 

^  "For  how  can  anything  be  called  evil,  unless  it  deviate  from  an  obligatory 
good,  and  be  therefore  a  violation  of  what  ought  to  be  (seinsollendes) — of  the 
holy  law." — Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  p.  308  (Eng.  trans.). 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  201 

of  sin,  accordingly,  has  for  its  presupposition  the  doctrine  of  -   _ 

God  as  ethical  Personality,  previously  explained.  It  is  God's 
perfect  nature  and  holy  will  which  form  the  norm  of 
character  and  duty  for  man.  The  law  of  holiness  requires, 
not  only  that  the  human  will  subsist  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  Divine,  being  surrendered  to  it  in  love,  trust,  and 
obedience,  but,  as  involved  in  this,  that  there  should  be  a 
right  state  of  the  affections,  a  pure  and  harmonious  inner  life. 
The  external  sphere  for  obedience  is  prescribed  by  our 
position  in  the  world,  and  by  our  relation  to  it,  to  our 
neighbours,  and  to  God. 

As  the  negation  of  this,  sin,  in  the  Biblical  view,  consists  Sin,  as  revolt 
in  the  revolt  of  the  creature  will  from  its  rightful  allegiance  •^^!'f/    °  I  Z' 

o  o  setting  up  of 

to  the  sovereign  will  of  God,  and  the  setting  up  of  a  idl^Q  false  independ- 
independence,  the  substitution  of  a  life-for-self  for  life-for-  ^^'^^' 
God.^  How  such  an  act  should  ever  originate  may  again  be 
a  problem  we  cannot  solve ;  but  it  is  evidently  included  in 
the  possibilities  of  human  freedom.  The  possibility  of  sin 
arises  from  the  fact  that  the  creature  has  necessarily  a 
relative  independence;  and  that  in  man,  particularly, 
together  with  the  impulse  towards  God,  there  exists  an 
impulse  towards  the  world,  which  the  will  may  be  tempted  to 
make  an  object  on  its  own  account.^  The  false  choice  made, 
the  spiritual  bond  between  God  and  the  soul  is  cut  or  at 
least  infinitely  weakened  ;  the  soul  enters  into  subjection  to 
the  world  to  which  it  has  surrendered  itself,  and  an  abnormal 
development  begins,  in  which  the  baneful  and  God-negating 
character  of  the  egoistic  principle  taken  into  the  will  gradually 
reveals  itself.^ 

While  thus  spiritual  in  its  origin,  as  arising  from  the  free  Effects  of  in 
act   of    a  will   up    to   that  time   pure,  sin  is  anything   \^^^  subversion  of 

^  jr         '  ./  o      ^        ^^.^^g  relation  of 

spiritual  in  its  effects.     Its  immediate  result  is  the  subversion  natural  and 

spiritual. 

^  Exemplified  in  the  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  (Luke  xv.  11  ff.). 

2  Cf.  Martensen's  Christian  Ethics,  i.  sees.  26-28  (Eng.  trans,  pp.  94-102). 

^  On  the  development  and  forms  of  sin,  see  Miiller,  Christian  Doctrine  oj 
Sin,  i.  pp.  147-182  ;  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  pp.  393-397  ;  Martensen, 
Christian  Ethics,  i.  pp.  102-108,  etc.  (Eng.  trans.). 


202    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

of  the  true  relation  of  the  natural  and  the  spiritual  in  man's 
constitution,  making  that  supreme  which  ought  to  be  sub- 
ordinate, and  that  subordinate  which  ought  to  be  supreme. 
The  relation  of  the  spiritual  and  psychical  in  human  nature 
is  inverted.  The  spiritual  is  reduced  to  subjection,  can  at 
best  make  only  feeble  and  ineffectual  protests ;  the  natural 
or  psychical  is  elevated  to  authority  and  rule.  Further,  the 
spiritual  bond  being  broken  which  kept  the  nature  in 
harmony — reason,  conscience,  the  God-ward  affections  ruling, 
while  the  lower  passions  and  desires  observed  the  bounds 
which  higher  law  prescribed  for  them — not  only  is  the 
psychical  nature  exalted  to  undue  ascendency,  but  its  own 
actings  are  now  turbulent  and  irregular.  It  refuses  to  obey 
law ;  its  desires  clamour  importunately  each  for  its  own 
special  gratification ;  discord  and  division  take  the  place  of 
the  normal  unity.  There  is  introduced  into  the  soul  a  state 
of  avo\Lia  —  lawlessness.^  Eeason  and  conscience  are  still 
there  as  indestructible  elements  of  human  nature,  nor  can 
the  sense  of  its  dependence  on  God,  or  obligation  to  Him,  ever 
be  entirely  lost.  Hence  arise,  even  in  the  natural  man, 
conflict,  struggle,  self-condemnation,  painful  and  ineffectual 
attempts  to  break  the  dominion  of  sin,  never  truly  successful.^ 
For  this  reason,  that  carnality  preponderates  in  the  nature  of 
man  as  a  whole,  and  that  the  most  spiritual  acts  of  the 
natural  man  betray  the  signs  of  its  controlling  influence,  the 
whole  man  is  spoken  of  as  "  in  the  flesh,"  though  elsewhere 
Paul  distinguishes  the  flesh  from  that  better  self — the  i^ou?, 
or  inner  man — which  protests  against  its  rule.^  All  this  finds 
Verification  in  its  verification  in  conscience  and  experience,  if  not  in  its 
consciousness.  ^^^^^Yii^  ^^  cvcry  man's  consciousness,  yet  in  the  general 
consciousness  of  the  race.  What  a  man's  judgment  of  him- 
self will  be  depends  upon  his  standpoint,  but  in  proportion  to 

1  1  John  iii.  4.  ^  Rq^^,  yij,  13-25. 

^  Rom.  vii.  22,  23.  On  tlie  various  views  of  the  Pauline  use  of  the  term 
ffoip^,  with  criticism  of  these,  see  Dr.  Dickson's  St.  Paul's  Use  of  the  Terms 
Flesh  and  Spirit  (Baird  Lectures,  1883).  Of.  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  ii. 
p.  319  (Eng.  trans.). 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  203 

the  depth  of  his  self-knowledge  he  will  confess  that  his 
heart  is  not  naturally  possessed  by  love  to  God,  and  by 
spiritual  affections ;  that  his  inner  life  is  not  perfectly  pure 
and  harmonious ;  that  there  are  principles  in  his  heart  at  war 
with  what  duty  and  the  law  of  God  require ;  that  he  often 
transgresses  the  commandment  which  he  recognises  as  "  holy, 
and  just,  and  good,"  ^  in  thought  and  word  and  deed ;  and  that, 
in  all  this,  he  lies  under  his  own  self-condemnation.  He  is 
conscious  that  the  sin  of  his  heart  is  such  that  he  would  not 
willingly  lay  bare  its  secrets  to  his  closest  intimate,  and  he 
would  probably  confess  also  that  this  state  in  which  he  finds 
himself  did  not  spring  wholly,  or  de  now,  from  his  individual 
will,  but  that  it  developed  from  a  nature  in  which  the 
principle  of  disorder  was  already  implanted. 

Gathering  these  observations  to  an  issue,  I  conclude  that  sin  in  the 
the  cardinal   point  in  the  Christian  view  of   sin  is,  that  it  C^'^^^*^^^ 

view  not  some- 

is  not  something  natural,  normal,  and  necessary,  but,  both  thing  natural, 
as    actual    and    as    hereditary,   something   which    must   find  normal,  and 

.  .  n       1  IT        necessary,  but 

its  explanation  m  a  free  act  of  the  creature,  annulling  ^/^^  ^^^^^/^  ^y^ 
the  original  relation  of  the  creature  to  God.  The  Christian/'^^^^^^/^^^ 
view,  in  other  words,  cannot  be  maintained  on  the  hypo- 
thesis that  man's  existing  state  is  his  original  one, —  still 
less  on  the  assumption  that,  in  a  moral  respect,  it  is  an 
advance  and  improvement  on  his  original  one, — but  only  on 
the  supposition  that  man  has  wilfully  defaced  the  Divine 
image  in  which  he  was  originally  made,  and  has  voluntarily 
turned  aside  to  evil.  Apart  from  express  statements  on  the 
subject,  the  underlying  presupposition  of  the  Christian  view 
is  that  sin  has  a  volitional  cause,  which,  as  the  sin  itself  is 
universal,  must  be  carried  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  race 
— that,  in  other  words,  the  development  of  the  race  has  not 
been  a  natural  and  normal,  but  an  abnormal  and  perverted 
one.  And  here  it  is,  I  admit,  that  the  modern  view  of  the 
world,  with  its  doctrine  of  man's  original  brutishness,  and 
his  ascent  by  his  own  efforts  to  civilisation  and  moral  life, 

1  Eom.  vii.  12. 


204   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

comes  into  the  most  direct  and  absolute  contradiction  with  it. 
Many  attempts — some  of  them  well-meant — have  been  made 
to  gloze  over,  or  get  rid  of,  this  contradiction ;  but  these 
would-be  solutions  all  break  on  the  fact  that  they  make  sin, 
or  what  passes  for  sin,  a  natural  necessity ;  whereas,  on  the 
Biblical  view,  it  is  clearly  not  man's  misfortune  only,  but  his 
fault — a  deep  and  terrible  evil  for  which  he  is  responsible. 
Theories  of  sin  We  shall  best  appreciate  the  force  of  this  contradiction  by 
opposed  to        looking  at  some  of  the  theories  to  which  the  Christian  view 

Christian  " 

view:  is  opposed. 

I.  Theories  1.  First,  we  havc  a  class  of  theories  which  seek  the  ground 

-cvhich  seek  the  q£  ^^q  -j^  creation,  or  in  tlu  original  constihUion  of  the  world  ; 

ground  of  evil  "^  j  ' 

in  the  original  but  thesc  I    do    not    dwell    upou.     Such  is    the    theory  of 
constitution  of  Buddhism,  and  of  all  the  pessimistic  system.s.     "  The  exist- 

the  world. 

ence  of  the  world,"  Schopenhauer  holds,  "  is  itself  the  greatest 
evil  of  all,  and  underlies  all  other  evil,  and  similarly  the  root 
evil  for  each  individual  is  his  having  come  into  the  world  " ;  ^ 
and  Hartmann  speaks  of  the  "  inexpiable  crime  "  of  creation.^ 
Such,  again,  is  the  hypothesis  of  two  original  principles  in 
creation,  e.g.  the  Persian  dualism,  of  which  we  see  some  faint 
attempts  at  a  revival  in  modern  times.^  Such  were  the 
Platonic  and  Gnostic  theories,  that  evil  had  its  origin  in  matter. 
This  doctrine  also  has  its  modern  revivals.  Even  Eothe  has 
adopted  the  view  which  seeks  the  origin  of  evil  in  matter, 
though  why  matter  should  be  supposed  inimical  to  goodness 
it  is  not  easy  to  see.  With  him,  it  is  the  non-divine,  the  con- 
tradictory counterpart  to  God,  opposed  in  its  essence  to  the 
Divine,  a  conception  not  Biblical,  and  one  which  cannot  be 
maintained.* 

^  Pfleiderer,  Heligioiisphilosophk,  ii.  p.  233  (Eng.  trans.).  Cf.  Welt  als  Wille, 
etc.,  i.  pp.  452-461  ;  iii.  pp.  420-454. 

^  That  is,  on  the  supposition  that  the  Creator  knew  what  he  was  about. 

^  See  Note  B. — Dualistic  Theories  of  the  Origin  of  Evil. 

*  See  his  theory  in  Theologische  Ethik,  2nd  ed.,  i.  sees.  40,  104-130.  Cf. 
his  Still  Hours  (Eng.  trans.),  pp.  185,  186.  He  says:  **The  development  of 
man  passes  through  stages  of  sin.  ...  If  sin  is  a  necessary  point  in  human 
development,  it  is  not  on  that  account  merely  negative.  .  .  .  Evil  in  the  course 
of  development,  or  sin,  is  not  in  itself  a  condition  of  the  development  of  the 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER,  205 

2.  We  come,  second,  to  a   class   of  theories  which   seek  2.  Theories 
the    explanation    of    evil    in    the    nature    of    man.       It    is  "^^^Y^  ^e.k-fhe 

^  "  explanation  of 

the    characteristic    of    all   these    theories    that    they   regard  evil  in  the 
sin  as  necessarily  resulting  from  the  constitution  of  human  ^^^^^^^  of  man. 
nature,  in  contrast  with  the  Biblical  view  that   it   entered 
the  world  voluntarily.     Of  this  class  of  theories,  again,  we 
have  several  kinds. 

(1)  We  have  the  metaphysical  theories  of  sin — that,  e.g.,  of  (i)  Metaphysi- 
Hegel.      Sin  is  here  regarded  as  a  necessary  stage  in    the  '^^^  t'^^ones  oj 
development  of  spirit.     Hegel  is  fond  of  explicating  the  story 

of  Eden  in  the  interests  of  his  philosophy,  and  this  is  how  he 
does  it.  "Knowledge,  as  the  disannulling  of  the  unity  of 
nature,"  he  says,  "  is  the  '  Fall,'  which  is  no  casual  conception, 
but  the  eternal  history  of  spirit.  For  the  state  of  innocence, 
the  paradisaical  condition,  is  that  of  the  brute.  Paradise  is  a 
park,  where  only  brutes,  not  men,  can  remain.  .  .  .  The  fall 
is,  therefore,  the  eternal  mythus  of  man,  in  fact  the  very 
transition  by  which  he  becomes  man  ? "  ^  Sin,  in  brief,  is  the 
first  step  of  man  out  of  his  naturalness,  and  the  only  way  in 
which  he  could  take  that  step.  It  is  the  negation  of  the 
immediate  unity  of  man  with  nature,  and  of  the  innocence  of 
that  pristine  state,  but  only  that  the  negation  may  be  in 
turn  negated,  and  the  true  destination  of  spirit  realised.^ 

(2)  We  have  the  ethical  and  woidd-he  Christian  forms  of  (2)  Ethical 
these   theories,  in  which  the  subject  is  looked  at  from  i\^Q  ^^'f '^ouid-be 

•^  Christian 

religious  point  of  view.     Such,  e.g.,  is  the  theory  of  Schleier-  theories. 
macher,   who   derives  sin   from  a  relative   weakness   of  the 

good  ;  but  it  belongs  to  the  idea  of  creation,  as  a  creation  out  of  nothing,  that 
the  created  personality  cannot  detach  itself  from  material  nature  otherwise  than 
by  being  clothed  upon  with  matter,  and  being  in  this  way  altered,  rendered 
impure  or  sinful.  This  is  the  necessary  commencement  of  the  creation  of 
man,  but  only  its  mere  commencement,  which  conies  to  a  close  in  the  Second 
Adam.  .  .  .  The  necessity  of  a  transition  through  sin  is  not  directly  an 
ethical,  but  rather  a  physical  necessity."  The  theory  is  criticised  by  Midler, 
pp.  146-147  (Eng.  trans.);  and  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  pp.  375-380 
(Eng.  trans.). 

1  Philosophy  of  History  (Eng.  trans.),  p.  333,  Cf.  Beligionsphilosophie,  ii. 
pp.  264-266. 

^  See  Note  C. — Hegel's  Doctrine  of  Sin. 


2o6   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

spirit  as  compared  with  sense.^  Such,  again,  is  the  theory  of 
Lipsiiis,  who  explains  it  from  the  fact  that  man  is  at  first  a 
naturally  conditioned  and  self-seeking  being,  while  his  moral 
will  is  only  gradually  developed.^  Such  is  the  theory  of 
Eitschl,  who  connects  it  with  man's  ignorance.  With  him 
also  man  starts  as  a  purely  natural  being,  the  subject  of  self- 
seeking  desires,  while  his  will  for  good  is  a  "  growing " 
quantity.^  Sin,  therefore,  is  an  inevitable  stage  in  his 
development. 
{-^Evolution-  (3)  We  have  the  evolutionary  theories,  in  which  man 
ary  theories:    ]3eorins  Only  a  sliadc  rcmovcd  from  the  brutes,  and  his  sub- 

lower  aitd  ° 

higher.  sequent  moralisation  is  the  result  of  slow  development.     This 

theory  may  be  held  in  a  more  naturalistic  or  in  a  more 
philosophical  form.  In  the  former,  the  genesis  of  our  moral 
ideas,  from  which  the  sense  of  sin  arises,  is  sought  in  causes 
outside  of  the  moral  altogether — in  the  possession  by  man  of 
social  as  well  as  egoistic  impulses,  in  the  perception  of  the 
advantage  that  would  accrue  from  the  subordination  of  the 
latter  to  the  former,  in  the  gradual  accumulation  of  the 
results  of  experience  in  the  organism  through  heredity,  in  the 
strengthening  of  the  bonds  of  society  through  custom,  law, 
etc.*  What  this  theory  fails  to  show  is  how  this  idea  of  the 
advantageous  becomes  converted  into  the  perfectly  distinct 
conception  of  the  morally  obligatory.  A  clearly  perceived 
duty  lays  an  obligation  on  the  will  quite  distinct  from  a 
perceived  advantage ;  and  even  supposing  the  discovery  made 
that  a  larger  good  would  accrue  through  every  individual 
devotinf]j  himself  to  the  common  weal,  a  distinct  notion  is 


1  Der  Christ.  Glauhe,  sees.  66-69.  Cf.  Miiller,  i.  pp.  341-359,  on  ''Schleier- 
maclier's  View  of  the  Essence  and  Origin  of  Sin,"  and  Dorner,  System  of 
Doctrine,  iii.  pp.  34-38  (Eng.  trans.). 

2  Bogmafik,  pp.  374-375. 

3  Cf.  liis  Unterricht,  3rd  ed.  p.  26.  This,  according  to  him,  creates  only 
"a  possibility  and  probability"  of  sin;  but  it  is  a  possibility  which,  as  shown 
below,  in  the  early  stages  of  man's  history,  cannot  fail  to  be  realised. 

^  Cf.  for  different  forms  of  the  evolutionary  theory,  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man, 
Stephen's  Science  of  Ethics,  Spencer's  Data  of  Ethics ;  and  see  criticism  in 
Sorley's  Ethics  of  Naturalism,  chaps,  v.  to  viii. 


m  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  207 

involved  when  it  is  perceived  that  duty  requires  us  to  adopt 
this  for  our  end.^    The  higher  form  of  the  evolutionary  theory,  -  - 

accordingly,  makes  a  more  promising  beginning,  in  that  it 
grants  to  man  from  the  first  his  rational  nature,  and  recog- 
nises that  his  ideas  of  moral  truth  and  obligation  spring 
directly  from  a  rational  source.  It  is  held,  however,  as  in 
the  theories  already  considered,  that  at  first  it  is  the  instinctive 
impulses,  in  which  the  self-regarding  desires  are  necessarily 
preponderant,  which  hold  the  field,  and  that  man  comes  to 
the  knowledge  of  his  true  nature  only  gradually.  Man, 
indeed,  only  begins  to  be  a  moral  being,  when,  through  the 
awakening  of  his  moral  consciousness,  he  makes  the  discovery 
that  he  is  not  what,  in  the  true  idea  of  his  personality,  he 
ought  to  be — when  he  forms  an  ideal.  It  is  this  impulse  to 
realise  his  true  nature,  to  attain  to  moral  freedom,  and  brins 
the  self-seeking  impulses  into  harmony  with  moral  law,  which, 
on  this  theory,  constitutes  the  mainspring  of  all  development 
and  progress.^ 

Taking  this  class  of  theories  together,  I  contend  that  it  is  Sin  in  all 
impossible  to   derive    out   of   them    conceptions   of   sin   and  ^^^^"^f  ^^^°^^^^ 

^  made  some- 

guilt  adequate  to  the  Christian  view.     In  the  first  place,  it  thing  neces- 
is  evident  that,  in  all  these  theories,  sin  is  made  something  ^^''-^* 
necessary — not  simply  something  that  might  be,  or  could  be, 
but    an    absolute    necessity.       In    every   one    of    them,   the 
original  condition  of  man  is  supposed  to  be  such  that  sin 
could   not   but  result   from    it.      This,   it   seems    to    me,   is 

^  Mr.  Stephen  substitutes  the  "health"  for  the  "happiness"  of  society  as 
the  moral  end  (p.  366).  But  the  health  is  in  order  to  the  liappiness,  and  it  is 
presumed  that  the  two  tend  to  coincide  (pp.  82,  83).  "Morality  is  a  statement 
of  the  conditions  of  social  welfare,"  "the  sum  of  the  preservative  instincts  of 
society,"  "virtue  is  a  condition  of  social  welfare,"  etc.  (p.  217).  Strong  in  his 
criticism  of  the  ordinary  utilitarianism,  Mr.  Stephen  is  weak  in  his  attempt  to 
provide  a  substitute,  or  show  how  the  moral  can  possibly  arise  out  of  the  non- 
moral.     See  Mr.  Sorley's  criticism,  Ethics  of  Naturalism,  chap.  viii. 

2  Cf.  with  this  general  sketch  Bradley's  Ethical  Studies  (see  pp.  261-265  on 
"  The  Origin  of  the  Bad  Self") ;  and  Green's  Prolegomena  to  Ethics,  Book  iii., 
on  "the  Moral  Ideal  and  Moral  Progress."  Green  finds  the  moral  end  in 
rational  "self-satisftiction," — a  conception  into  which  it  is  difficult  to  avoid 
importing  a  subtle  kind  of  hedonism  ;  Bradley  less  objectionably  finds  it  in 
"  self-realisation." 


2o8    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


Attempts  to 
disclaim  this 
conclusion : 
Hegel. 


Schleier- 
mcuher. 


Lipsitis  and 
Ritschl. 


practically  to  empty  the  idea  of  sin  of  its  real  significance, 
and  to  throw  the  responsibility  of  it  directly  back  on  the 
Creator.  It  is  probably  a  feeling  of  this  kind  which  leads 
many  who  favour  the  view  we  are  considering  to  disclaim  the 
word  "  necessity."  Hegel,  even,  tells  us  that  sin  is  not  neces- 
sary ;  that  man  can  will  evil,  but  is  not  under  compulsion  to 
will  it.  But  this  is  a  mere  evasion,  arising  from  an  ambiguous 
use  of  terms.  In  a  multitude  of  other  places  Hegel  tells  us 
that  sin  arises  from  the  highest  logical  and  speculative 
necessity.^  Schleiermacher,  in  like  manner,  disclaims  the  view 
that  sin  is  a  necessary  law  of  human  development.^  He 
could  not  do  otherwise,  and  hold,  as  he  does,  the  sinlessness 
of  Christ.  But  he  holds  at  the  same  time  that  the  develop- 
ment through  sin — or  what  we  subjectively  regard  as  sin — 
is  the  form  of  growth  ordained  for  us  by  God,  with  a  view  to 
the  ultimate  Kedemption,  or  perfecting,  of  the  race  in  Christ.^ 
Lipsius  will  have  it  that  sin  is  at  once  necessary  and  free 
and  avoidable.*  Eitschl  holds,  in  the  same  way,  that  a 
necessity  of  sinning  can  be  derived  neither  from  the  outfit  of 
human  nature,  nor  from  the  ends  of  moral  life,  nor  from  a 
design  of  God.^  Yet  he  grants,  and  starting  off  with  man  as 
he  does  as  a  merely  natural  being,  he  could  not  do  otherwise, 
that  sin  is  an  apparently  unavoidable  product  of  the  human 
will  under  the  given  conditions  of  its  development.^  All 
these  theories  in  fact,  therefore,  however  they  may  evade  the 
use  of  the  name,  do  make  sin  a  necessity.  In  the  evolutionary 
theories  this  is  very  obvious.  There  is  here  no  pretence  that 
a  sinless  development  is  possible.  How  is  it  conceivable  that 
a  being  beginning  at  the  stage  of  lowest  savagery  should 
avoid  sin ;  and  what  responsibility  can  be  supposed  to  attach 
to  the  acts  of   such  a   being,  in  whom  brute  passions  and 


^Cf.  the  references  to  Phil,  des  Rechts,  sec.  139,  in  Miiller,  p.  392,  and  see 
Note  C. 
2  Der  Christ.  Glauhe,  sec.  68,  3.  ^  Der  christ.  Glaube,  sees.  80,  81. 

^  Dogmatik,  pp.  376,  377,  sees.  475-477. 
^  Unterricht,  p.  26  ;  and  Becht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  358. 
^  Hecht.  und  Ver.  iii.  3rd  ed.  p.  360. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  209 

desires  have  full  ascendency,  while  reason  and  conscience  are 

yet  a  glimmer — a  bare  potentiality  ? 

One  immediate  effect  of  these  theories,  accordingly,  is  to  Weakening  or 
weaken,  if  not  entirely  to  destroy,  the  idea  of  guilt.     How  ^^iT/ 1'// 
can  man  be  held  responsible  for  acts  which  the  constitution 
of  his  nature  and  his  environment — without  the  intervention 
of  moral  causes  of  any  kind,  such  as  is  involved  in  the  idea 
of  a  "  Fall  " — make  inevitable  ?     In  all  these  theories  I  have 
named,  accordingly,  it  will  be  found   that  there  is  a  great 
weakening  down  of  the  idea  of  guilt.     That  man  attributes 
his  acts  to  himself,  and  feels  guilty  on  account  of  them,  is,  of 
course,   admitted ;    but   instead  of    guilt   being    regarded   as 
something  objectively  real,  which  God  as  well  as  man  is  bound 
to  take  account  of,   it    comes    to    be  viewed    as   something 
clinging  only  to  the  subjective  consciousness, — a  subjective 
judgment  which    the    sinner    passes    on    himself,    to    which 
nothing  actual  corresponds.     Redemption    thus  becomes,  in 
theories  that  admit  Redemption,  not  the  removal  of  guilt,  but 
of   the   consciousness   of  guilt ;    and   this,   not  by  any   real 
Divine  pardon,  but  by  the  sinner  being  brought  to  see  that 
his  guilty  fears  misrepresented  the  actual  state  of  God's  mind 
towards  him.     Thus  it  is  in  the  theories  of  Schleiermacher,  Theories  of 
of  Lipsius,  and  of  Ritschl  —  in  that   of  Ritschl  most  con-  Sckleier- 
spicuously.      According    to    Schleiermacher,    this    subjective  upsitis.  and 
consciousness  of  guilt  is  a  Divinely  ordained  thing  to  serve  as  Ki^schi. 
a  spur  to  make  men  seek  Redemption,  i.e.  to  be  taken  up  into 
the  perfect  life  of  Christ.^     Ritschl  regards  all  sins  as  arising 
so  much  from  ignorance  as  to  be  without  real  guilt  in  the  eyes 
of  God.      God  does  not  impute  guilt  on  account  of  the  ignor- 
ance in  which  we  now  live.      The  reason,  therefore,  why  sins 
are  pardonable  is,  that  though  the  sinner  imputes  them  to 

1  Dtr  Christ.  Glaube,  sees.  80,  81.  Cf.  Miiller,  pp.  355-356.  The  views  of 
Lipsius  may  be  seen  in  his  Dogmatik,  sees.  768-771.  "Justification,"  he  says, 
"in  respect  of  human  sin,  is  the  removal  of  the  consciousness  of  guilt  as  a 
power  separating  from  God,  .  .  .  the  certainty  awakened  in  him  by  tlie  Spirit 
of  God  present  in  man  of  his  fellowship  in  life  and  love  with  God,  as  something 
graciously  restored  in  him  by  God  Himself." — P.  690. 

14 


2IO   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

himself  as  offences,  they  are  not  properly  sins  at  all,  but  acts 
done  in  ignorance.  The  guilt  attaching  to  these  acts  is  but 
a  feeling  in  the  sinner's  own  consciousness,  separating  him 
from  God,  which  the  Eevelation  of  God's  Fatherly  love  in  the 
Gospel  enables  him  to  overcome.^  But  I  ask,  Does  this 
harmonise  with  the  moral  experience  of  the  race — not  to  say 
with  the  statements  of  the  Bible  ?  Is  it  not  the  universal 
feeling  of  mankind  that  guilt  is  a  terrible  and  stern  reality, 
carrying  with  it  objective  and  lasting  effects,  that  it  is 
as  real  as  the  "  ought "  is  real,  and  that  conscience,  in 
passing  judgment  on  our  state,  is  but  reflecting  the  judg- 
ment of  God,  to  whom,  ultimately,  we  are  accountable  ? 
This  weakening  down  and  subjectivising  of  the  idea  of 
guilt  is  to  me  a  strong  condemnation  of  any  theory  from 
which  it  springs. 
Differences  ThcsB  theories  contradict  the  Christian  view  of  sin,  not 

simply  in  respect  of  its  nature  and  of  the  degree  of  guilt 
attaching  to  it,  but  in  the  accounts  they  give  of  its  origin, 
view  depend  on  Xhey  regard  that  as  a  normal  state  for  man  in  the  beginning 
orinn.  ^^  ^^^  history,  which  the  Christian  view  can  only  regard  as 

an  abnormal  one.  This  is,  indeed,  the  primary  difference  on 
Consequences  which  all  the  othcrs  depend.  With  minor  differences,  these 
in  theory  of     theories  all  agree  in  recjarding  man's  original  condition  as  one 

man  s  original  ^  <j  o  o  ^ 

imttishness.  but  little  removed  from  the  brute ;  the  animal  impulses  are 
powerful  and  ungoverned.  Is  this  a  state  which,  from  the 
Christian  point  of  view,  can  ever  be  regarded  as  normal  ?  It 
may  be  a  normal  state  for  the  animal — can  it  be  a  normal 
state  for  a  moral  personality  ?  In  such  a  being,  even  from 
the  first,  the  moral  law  asks  for  a  subordination  of  the  animal 
impulses  to  reason  and  conscience,  for  unity,  and  not  for 
disorganisation  and  lawlessness.  It  asks  for  this,  not  as 
something  to  be  attained  through  ages  of  development,  but  as 
something  which  ought  to  exist  now,  and  counts  the  being  in  a 
wrong  moral  state  who  does  not  possess  it.     What,  according 

1  RexU.  und  Ver.  iii.  pp.  46,  52,  56,  83  ;  306,  307  ;  356-363,  etc.     Ste  Note 
D. — Ritschl's  Doctrine  of  Guilt. 


between  the 
Christian  and 
the  modern 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  2 1 1 

to  these  theories  themselves,  is  the  judgment  which  the  indi- 
vidual, vi^hen  moral  consciousness  awakes,  passes  on  himself  ? 
Is  it  not  that  he  is  in  a  wrong  moral  state,  a  state  in  which  he 
condemns  himself,  and  feels  shame  at  the  thought  of  being 
in  it  ?  Else  whence  this  sense  of  moral  dissatisfaction,  which 
it  is  acknowledged  that  he  feels,  and  feels  the  more  keenly 
in  proportion  as  his  moral  perceptions  become  more  acute  ? 
It  is  not  simply  that  he  has  an  ideal  which  he  has  not  reached  : 
this  is  an  experience  to  be  found  in  every  stage  of  develop- 
ment, even  when  the  conscience  implies  no  blame.  But  the 
contrast  is  between  the  idea  of  the  "is"  and  of  the  "ought 
to  be,"  even  in  his  present  state,  and  this  awakens  the  feeling 
of  blame.^  On  what  ground,  further,  must  it  be  held  that 
man  must  have  commenced  his  career  from  this  low  and  non- 
moral,  if  not  positively  immoral  point  ?  Is  it  a  necessary 
part  of  a  law  of  development,  that  a  man  can  only  reach  that 
which  he  ought  to  be  by  passing  through  that  which  he 
ought  not  to  be  ?  Then  evil  has  a  relative  justification,  and 
the  judgment  which  the  immediate  consciousness  passes  on  it 
must  be  retracted  or  modified  from  a  higher  point  of  view.^ 
We  have  only  to  compare  the  Christian  estimate  of  sin  with 
that  to  which  this  theory  leads  us,  to  see  how  profound  is 
the  difference  between  them.  On  this  theory  of  development, 
when  a  man  has  reached  the  higher  moral  standpoint,  he 
judges  of  his  former  state  more  leniently  than  he  did  at  first ; 
lie   ceases   to    pass  condemnatory  judgments   on  himself  on 

^  Dorner  truly  says  :  "Evil  does  not  consist  in  man's  not  yet  being  initially 
what  he  will  one  day  become  ;  for  then  evil  must  be  called  normal,  and  can 
only  be  esteemed  exceptionable  by  an  error.  Evil  is  something  different  from 
mere  development.  .  .  .  Evil  is  the  discord  of  man  with  his  idea,  as,  and  so  far 
as,  that  idea  should  be  realised  at  the  given  moment.  .  .  .  Sin  is  not  being 
imperfect  at  all,  but  the  contravention  of  what  ought  to  be  at  a  given  moment, 
and  of  what  can  lay  claim  to  unconditioned  worth." — JSystem  of  Doctrine,  iii. 
pp.  36,  37. 

'^  Dorner  says :  "If  evil  is  supposed  to  consist  only  in  development,  which 
God  has  willed  in  His  character  as  Creator,  then  its  absolute  wrongfulness  must 
come  to  an  end.  The  non-realisation  of  the  idea  cannot  be  blameworthy  in 
itself,  if  the  innate  law  of  life  itself  prescribes  progressiveness  of  development." 
— System  of  Doctrine,  p.  264. 


212    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

account  of  it.     In  the  Christian  view,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
higher  the  stagje  which  a  Christian  man  has  reached,  the  evil 
and  guilt  of  his  former  state  will  appear  in  a  deeper  dye ;  the 
more  emphatically  will  he  condemn  it  as  one  of  lostness  and 
shame.     Which  estimate  is  the  more  just  ?     I  do  not  think 
there  is  any  difficulty,  at  least,  in  seeing  which  is  most  in 
accord  with  the  idea  of  the  moral. 
Impossibility         \  cannot,  therefore,  think  that  the  picture  sometimes  given 
t/^Chrisr^n   ^^  ^^  Hian's  primeval  state — that  of  a  miserable,  half-starved, 
view  xuith        naked  wretch,  just  emerged  from  the  bestial  condition,  torn 
modern  ^^\\)[l  fierce  passions,  and  fighting  his  way  among  his  compeers 

primeval  man.  with  low-browcd  cunning,  is  one  in  harmony  with  the 
Relation  to  Christian  view.  And  the  adversaries  of  the  Christian  faith 
^rra  ive  oj  ^^^  ^^^^  admit  the  discrepancy  between  their  view  and  ours, 
but  glory  in  it.  Christianity,  they  say,  requires  you  to 
accept  one  view  of  man's  origin,  and  science  gives  quite 
another.  As  it  is  sometimes  put,  the  doctrine  of  Eedemption 
rests  on  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall ;  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
Fall  rests  on  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis.  But  science  has 
exploded  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis,  so  the  whole  structure 
falls  to  the  ground.  I  acknowledge  the  issue,  but  it  is  not 
rightly  put  to  say  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall  rests  on  the 
third  chapter  of  Genesis.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  Eedemp- 
tion certainly  does  not  rest  on  the  narrative  in  Gen.  iii.,  but 
it  rests  on  the  reality  of  the  sin  and  guilt  of  the  world, 
which  would  remain  facts  though  the  third  chapter  of 
Genesis  never  had  been  written.  It  would  be  truer  to  say 
that  I  believe  in  the  third  chapter  of  Genesis,  or  in  the 
essential  truth  which  it  contains,  because  I  believe  in  sin  and 
Eedemption,  than  to  say  that  I  believe  in  sin  and  Eedemption 
because  of  the  story  of  the  Fall.^  Put  the  third  chapter  of 
Genesis  out  of  view,  and  you  have  the  facts  of  the  sin  and 
disorder  of  the  world  to  be  accounted  for,  and  dealt  with,  all 
the  same. 

^  Cf.    the  suggestive  remarks   in   Auberlen's    The    Divine    Revdation,   pji. 
175-185  (Eng.  trans.). 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  213 

The  question  however  arises,  and  it  is  a  perfectly  fair  one  Do  fads  of 
to    raise,    Whatever    we    may    say    of    the    relation    to   the  ^^'"^"^^f^^^ 

./  ./  ...        contradict  the 

Christian  view,  is  not  this  doctrine  of  man's  origin,  which  christian 

implies  a  pure  point  of  beginning  in  the  history  of  the  race,  ^'^^  ^ 

expressly  contradicted  by  the  facts  of  anthropology  ?     Do  not 

the  facts  of  modern  science  compel  us  to  adopt  a  different 

view  ?     Must    we    not    conclude,  if    regard    is    had    to    the 

evidence,  that  man  did  begin  as  a  savage,  but  a  few  degrees 

removed  from  the  brutes,  and  has  only  gradually  worked  his 

way  upwards  to  his  present  condition  ?     In  answer  I  would 

say,  I  certainly  do  not   believe   that    this    theory  has  been 

proved,  and,  expressing  my  own  opinion,  1  do  not  think  it  is 

likely  to  be  proved.     If  it  were  proved,  I  admit  that  it  would 

profoundly  modify  our  whole    conception    of    the   Christian 

system.      Negatively,  evolutionists  have  not  proved  that  this 

was  the  original  state  of  man.      The  missing  link  between  77z^  "  ww/«^ 

man  and  brute  has  long  been  sought  for,  but  as  yet  has  been 

sought    in  vain.      The  oldest    specimens   of   men  known    to 

science  are  just  as  truly  men  as  any  of  their  successors.^     At 

the  same  time,  we  need  not  reject  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  No  necessary 

within   the   limits   in   which    science  has  really   rendered  it  '^^^ift^'^^  "^^^'^ 

theory  of 

probable.      The   only  theory  of  evolution  which  necessarily  evolution. 

1  Professor  Dana  said,  in  1875  :  "No  remains  of  fossil  man  bear  evidence  to 
less  perfect  erectness  of  structure  than  in  civilised  man,  or  to  any  nearer 
approacli  to  the  man  ape  in  essential  characteristics.  .  .  .  This  is  the  more 
extraordinary  in  view  of  the  fact,  that  from  the  lowest  limits  in  existing  man 
there  are  all  possible  gradations  up  to  the  highest ;  while  below  that  limit  there 
is  an  abrupt  fall  to  the  ape  level,  in  which  the  cubic  capacity  of  the  brain  is 
one-half  less.  If  the  links  ever  existed,  then  annihilation,  without  trace,  is  so 
extremely  improbable  that  it  may  be  pronounced  impossible.  Until  some  are 
found,  science  cannot  assert  that  they  ever  existed." — Geology,  p.  603. 

Virchow  said  in  1879:  "On  the  whole,  we  must  readily  acknowledge  that 
all  fossil  type  of  a  lower  human  development  is  absolutely  wanting.  Indeed, 
if  we  take  the  total  of  all  fossil  men  that  have  been  found  hitherto,  and  compare 
them  with  what  the  present  offers,  then  we  can  maintain  with  certainty  that 
among  the  present  generation  there  is  a  much  larger  number  of  relatively  low- 
type  individuals  than  among  the  fossils  hitherto  known.  .  .  .  We  cannot 
designate  it  as  a  revelation  of  science  that  man  descended  from  the  ape  or  any 
other  animal. " — Die  Freiheit  der  Wissenschaft,  pp.  29,  31. 

No  new  facts  have  been  discovered  since,  requiri))g  a  modification  of  these 
statements. 


214    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

conflicts  with  the  Biblical  view  is  that  which  supposes 
evolution  to  proceed  by  slow  and  gradual  modifications — 
"  insensible  gradations,"  as  Mr.  Spencer  puts  it — and  this  is 
a  view  to  which  many  of  the  facts  of  science  are  themselves 
opposed.  Evolution  is  not  opposed  to  the  appearance,  at 
certain  points  in  the  chain  of  development,  of  something 
absolutely  new,  and  it  has  already  been  mentioned  that 
distinguished  evolutionists,  like  Mr.  Alfred  Eussell  Wallace, 
freely  recognise  this  fact.^  The  "insensible  gradation" 
theory,  as  respects  the  transition  from  ape  to  man,  has  not  a 
single  fact  to  support  it.  With  man,  from  the  point  of  view 
Man  the  begin-  of  the  Bible,  wc  havc  the  rise  of  a  new  kingdom,  just  as  truly 
ningofa  new  ^^  ^^^^^-^  life  gj-g^  entered, — the  entrance  on  the  stage  of  nature 

kingdom.  '  ^ 

of  a  being  self-conscious,  rational,  and  moral,  a  being  made 

in  the  image  of  God, — and  it  is  arbitrary  to  assume  that  this 

new   beginning   will    not    be    marked    by   differences   which 

distinguish  it  from  the  introduction  of  purely  animal  races. 

Does  Arches-         The  evidence  which  is  adduced  from  other  quarters  of  the 

oiogyprcme  the  Qj-jginally  savage  state  of  man  is  equally  inconclusive.     There 

savage  condi-    is  uo  reason  to  believe  that  existing  savage  races  represent 

tionofman?    ^^  earliest  condition  of  mankind  ;  rather  there  is  evidence  to 

show  that  they  represent  a  degradation  from  a  higher  state. 

Do  savage        The  traccs  of  early  man  which  geology  has  disinterred  show, 

races  represent  j^deed,  the  existence  in  various  parts  of  the  world  of  races  in 

the  original  ^ 

state?  a  comparatively  rude   and    uncivilised   state;    but  they   are 

found  mostly  in  outlying  regions,  far  from  the  original  centres 

Evidence  of     of  distribution,  and  afford  no  good  evidence  of  what  man  was 

'J'/Jf  ^''''^'''"  when  he  first  appeared  upon  the  earth.2     On  the  other  hand, 

^  Not  only  in  respect  of  his  mind,  but  in  respect  also  of  his  body,  Mr. 
Wallace  has  contended  that  the  appearance  of  man  cannot  be  explained  on 
Darwinian  principles.  He  argues  from  the  brain  of  primitive  man  as  having  a 
development  beyond  his  actual  attainments,  suggesting  the  idea  of "  a  surphisage 
of  power  ;  of  an  instrument  beyond  the  wants  of  its  possessor  ; "  from  his 
hairless  back,  "thus  reversing  the  characteristics  of  all  other  mammalia  ;"  from 
the  peculiar  construction  of  the  foot  and  hand,  the  latter  "containing  latent 
capacities  and  powers  which  are  unused  by  savages;"  from  the  "wonderful 
power,  range,  flexibility,  and  sweetness  of  the  musical  sounds  producible  by  the 
human  larynx,"  etc. — Natural  Selection,  pp.  332,  330. 

^  See  Note  E. — Alleged  Primitive  Savagery  of  Mankind. 


lion. 


IJSr  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  215 

when  we  turn  to  the  regions  which  tradition  points  to  as  the 

cradle   of  the  race,  we   find   great  empires  and  civilisations  ^— - 

which  show  no  traces  of  those  gradual  advances  from  savagery 

which  the  modern  theory  requires,  but  w^hich  represent  man 

as   from  the  earliest  period  as  in  possession  of  faculties  of 

thought  and  action  of  a  high  order.^     The  theory,  again,  that 

man  began  with  the  lowest  Fetishism  in  religion,  and  only  Does  religion 

gradually  raised  himself  through  Polytheism  to  Monotheism,  ^^^'J^^^-^''^^^^ 

finds  no  support  from  the  history  of  religions.^     There  is  not  Monotheism  ? 

the   slightest   proof,  e.g.,   that   the   Yedic   religion  was    ever 

developed  out  of  fetish  worship,  or  ghost  worship,  but  many 

indications  that  it  w^as  preceded  by  a  purer  faith,  in  which 

the  sense  of  the  unity  of  God  was  not  yet  lost.     The  same 

may  be  said  of  the  religions  of   the  most  ancient  civilised 

peoples, — that  while  all,  or  nearly  all,  in  the  form  in  which 

we  know  them,  are  polytheistic  and  idolatrous,  there  is  not 

any  which  does  not  show  a  substratum  of  monotheistic  truth, 

and  fr(>m  which  we  cannot  adduce  many  proofs  of  an  earlier 

purer  faith.^ 

Another  side  from  which  the  Christian  view  is  contested,  Relation  of 
and  the  hypothesis  of  an  orisjinally  savaoje  condition  of  man    .  ^^\  ^^'^  , 

•^  ^  o  ./  o  view  to  modern 

is  supposed  to  be  supported,  is  the  evidence  that  has  been  theories  of  the 
accumulated  of  an  extreme  antiquity  of  the  human  race.      \  antiquity  oj 

,  ^  .       man. 

am  not  aware  that  the  Bible  is  committed  to  any  definite 
date  for  the  appearance  of  man  upon  the  earth ;  but  it  will 
be  generally  felt  that  if  the  extreme  views  which  some 
advocate  on  this  subject,  carrying  back  man's  appearance 
some  hundred  thousand  or  two  hundred  thousand  years,  were 
accepted,  it  would,  taken  in  connection  with  the  comparatively 
recent  origin  of  civilisation,  militate  against  the  view  which 
we  defend.  I  am  free  further  to  admit  that,  did  no  religious 
interest  enter,  and  were  the  facts  of  science  the  only  ones  to 
be  regarded,  we  would  probably  have  been  found  yielding  a 

^  Cf.  Canon  Rawlinson's  Origin  of  Nations,  Part  I.,  "On  Early  Civilisations ;" 
and  the  same  author's  "Antiquity  of  Man  Historically  Considered,"  in  Pre>ient 
Day  Tracts,  No.  9. 

2  Cf.  Note  A.  to  Lecture  III.  ^  See  Note  F.— Early  Monotheistic  Ideas. 


2i6    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

ready  assent  to  the  hypothesis  of  a  great  antiquity.  The 
religious  interests  at  stake  lead  us,  while  of  course  acknow- 
ledging that  whatever  science  really  proves  must  be  accepted 
as  true,  to  be  a  little  more  careful  in  our  examination  of  the 
proofs.  And  it  is  well  we  have  been  thus  cautious  ;  for,  if  we 
Present  state  of  \,^Q  the  latest  testimony  of  science  as  to  what  has  been 
usqneston.  j-gally  proved,  wc  find  that  the  recent  tendency  is  rather  to 
retrench  than  to  extend  the  enormous  periods  which  were  at 
first  demanded ;  and  that,  while  some  geologists  tell  us  that 
one  or  two  hundred  thousand  years  are  needed,  others, 
equally  well  informed,  declare  that  ten  thousand  years  would 
cover  all  the  facts  at  present  in  evidence.^  Professor  Boyd 
Dawkins  has  said  in  a  recent  Address : — "  The  question  of 
the  antiquity  of  man  is  inseparably  connected  with  the 
further  question.  Is  it  possible  to  measure  the  lapse  of 
geological  time  in  years  ?  Various  attempts  have  been  made, 
and  all,  as  it  seems  to  me,  have  ended  in  failure.  Till  we 
know  the  rate  of  causation  in  the  past,  and  until  we  can  be 
sure  that  it  is  invariable  and  uninterrupted,  I  cannot  see 
anything  but  failure  in  the  future.  Neither  the  rate  of  the 
erosion  of  the  land  by  sub-aerial  agencies,  nor  its  destruction 
by  oceanic  currents,  nor  the  rate  of  the  deposit  of  stalagmite, 
or  of  the  movement  of  the  glaciers,  have  as  yet  given  us 
anything  at  all  approaching  to  a  satisfactory  date.  We  have 
only  a  sequence  of  events  recorded  in  the  rocks,  with 
intervals,  the  length  of  which  we  cannot  measure.  It  is 
surely  impossible  to  fix  a  date  in  terms  of  years,  either  for  the 
first  appearance  of  man,  or  for  any  event  outside  the  written 
record."  ^ 
Science  does  I  claim,  then,  that  so  far  as  the  evidence  of  science  goes, 

not  negative  ^y^^  Bible  doctrinc  of  a  pure  beginning  of  the  race  is  not 
pure  begin-  Overturned.  I  do  not  enter  into  the  question  of  how  we  are 
mitgofthe      |.Q    interpret    the    third    chapter    of     Genesis, — whether    as 

race:  bibltcal 

account  of 

primeval  man.       ^  ^®^  Note  G. — The  Antiquity  of  Man  and  Geological  Time. 

2  Report  of  Address  to  British  Association,  Sept.  6,  1888.     Professor  Dawkins 
is  hinisflf  an  advocate  of  man's  great  antiquity. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  2 1 7 

history  or  allegory  or  myth,  most  probably  of  all,  as  old 
tradition  clothed  in  oriental  allegorical  dress, — but  the  truth 
embodied  in  that  narrative,  viz.,  the  fall  of  man  from  an 
original  state  of  purity,  I  take  to  be  vital  to  the  Christian 
view.  On  the  other  hand,  we  must  beware,  even  while  hold- 
ing to  the  Biblical  account,  of  putting  into  the  original  state 
of  man  more  than  the  narrative  warrants.  The  picture  given 
us  of  the  first  man  in  the  Bible  is  primitive  in  every  way 
The  Adam  of  the  book  of  Genesis  is  not  a  being  of  advanced 
intellectual  attainments,  or  endowed  with  an  intuitive  know- 
ledge of  the  various  arts  and  sciences.  If  his  state  is  far 
removed  from  that  of  the  savage,  it  is  equally  far  removed  from 
that  of  the  civilised  m.an.^  The  earliest  steps  in  what  we  call 
civilisation  are  of  later  date,  and  are  duly  recorded,  though 
they  belong,  not  to  the  race  of  Seth,  but  to  that  of  Cain.^ 
It  is  presumed  that  man  had  high  and  noble  faculties,  a  pure 
and  harmonious  nature,  rectitude  of  will,  capability  of  under- 
standing his  Creator's  instructions,  and  power  to  obey  them. 
Beyond  that  we  need  not  go.  The  essence  of  the  Biblical 
view  is  summed  up  in  the  words  of  the  preacher :  "  God 
made  man  upright ;  but  they  sought  out  many  inventions."  ^ 

II.  I  pass  to  the  consideration  of  the  connection  of  moral  //.  The  pro- 
with  natural  evil,  roservinoj  for  discussion    in  a    succeedinf]^    emo/nama 

'  ^  ^  evil:  coiinec' 

section  a  special  aspect  of  that  connection — the  relation  of  Hon  with 
sin  to  death.  I  begin  by  a  brief  consideration  of  the  problem  ^°'''^^  ^^''^' 
of  natural  evil,  as  such.  It  is  not  sin  only,  but  natural  evil 
— the  existence  of  pain  and  suffering  in  the  world — which  is 
made  the  ground  of  an  impQachment  of  God's  justice  and 
goodness.  Everyone  will  remember  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill's  terrible 
indictment  of  nature  on  this  score  ;*  and  Pessimism  has  given 
new  voice  to  the  plaints  which  have  always  been  heard  of 

1  Cf.  Dawson,  Modern  Science  in  Bible  Lands,  iv.,  "Early  Man  in  Genesis." 

2  Gen.  iv.  16-22.  3  EccI.  vii.  29.     Cf.  Delitzsch,  in  loc. 

^  Three  Essays,  pp.  29-31  :  "  In  sober  truth,  nearly  all  the  things  which  men 
are  hanged  or  imprisoned  for  doing  to  one  another,  are  Nature's  every-day 
performances,"  etc. 


2i8    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRIS7IAN  VIEW 

the  misery  and  suffering  bound  up  with  life.      On  the  general 
question,  I  would  only  like  again  to  emphasise  what  I  said 
at  the  outset  of  the  extent  to  which  this  problem  of  natural 
evil  is  bound  up  with  that  of  sin.     Apart  from  all  theological 
prepossessions,  we  have  only  to  cast  our  eyes  abroad  to  see 
how  large  a  part  of  the  total  difficulty  this  connection  with 
moral  evil  covers.     Take  away  from  the  history  of  humanity 
all  the  evils  which  have  come  on  man  through  his  own  folly, 
sin,   and   vice ;    through    the   follies   and    vices    of    society ; 
through  tyranny,  misgovern ment,    and    oppression ;    through 
the  cruelty  and  inhumanity  of  man  to  man ;  and  how  vast  a 
portion  of    the    problem  of    evil  would    already  be   solved ! 
"What  myriads  of  lives  have  been  sacrificed  at  the  shrines  of 
Bacchus  and  o-f  lust ;  what  untold  misery  has  been  inflicted 
on  the  race,  to  gratify  the  unscrupulous  ambitions  of  ruthless 
conquerors ;  what    tears    and  groans  have  sprung    from  the 
institution  of  slavery  ;  what  wretchedness  is  hourly  inflicted 
on  human  hearts  by  domestic  tyranny,  private  selfishness,  the 
preying    of     the    strong    upon     the    weak,    dishonesty    and 
chicanery  in  society !     If  great  civilisations  have  fallen,  to 
what  has  the  result  been  commonly  due,  if  not  to  their  own 
vices    and    corruptions,   which    sapped    and    destroyed    their 
vigour,  and  made  them  an  easy  prey  to  ruder  and  stronger 
races  ?  ^     If   society  witnesses   great  volcanic  eruptions   like 
the  French  Eevolution,  is  it  not  when  evil  has  reached  such  a 
height  through  the  long- accumulating  iniquities  of  centuries 
that  it  can  no  longer  be  borne,  and  the  explosion  effects  a 
remedy  which  could  not  otherwise  be  achieved  ?     If  all  the 
suffering  and  sorrow  which  follow  directly  or  indirectly  from 
human  sin  could   be  abstracted,  what  a  happy  world,  after 
all,  this  would  be !     Yet  there  seem  to  be  natural  evils  which 
are  independent  of  sin,  and  we  must  endeavour  to  look  the 
problem  suggested  by  them  fairly  in  the  face. 
Natural  evil         First  of  all,  I  would  say  that  this  problem  of  natural  evil 
can  hardly  be  said  to  meet  us  in  the  inanimate  world  at  all, 

1  Cf.  Martineau,  Study  of  Religion,  ii.  pp.  131-135  (Book  ii.  chap.  iii,). 


in  the  inani 
mate  world. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  219 

i.e.  regarding  it  merely  as  such.^  We  see  there  what  may 
appear  to  us  like  disharmony  and  disorder ;  convulsion, 
upheaval,  the  letting  loose  of  titanic  forces  which  work 
havoc  and  destruction ;  but  except  in  relation  to  sentient 
existences,  we  cannot  properly  speak  of  these  as  evil.  We 
may  wonder  why  they  should  be,  but,  when  we  see  what  ends 
are  served  in  the  economy  of  nature  by  this  apparently 
lawless  clash  and  conflict  of  forces,  we  may  reconcile  our- 
selves to  it  as  part  of  a  system,  which,,  on  the  whole,  is  very 
good.2 

Neither  does  this  problem  properly  meet  us  in  QonuQQ.t\%n  Natural  evil 
with  the  organic  world,  so  far  as  it  is  not  sentient,  e.g.  in  ^^^  ^^^^  organic 
connection  with  the  law  of  decay  and  death  in  the  vegetable  (i)  Non- 
world.     When  it  is  said  that,  according  to  the  Bible,  there  ^^'^^^^^it 

{vegetable). 

was  no  death  before  Adam,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
Bible  speaks  of  a  vegetable  creation,  which  was  evidently 
intended  to  be  perishable,^= — which,  in  fact,  was  given  for 
food  to  animals  and'  men;  We  feel  no  difficulty  in  this. 
The  plants  are  part  of  nature.  They  flower,  seed,  decay.. 
They  fall  under  the  law  of  all  finite,  merely  natural  existences 
in  being  subject  to  corruptibility  and  death. 

When  we  rise  to  animal  life,  the  problem  does  appear,  for  (2)  Sentient 
here  we  have  sentiency  and  suffering.     Yet  abstracting  for  a  (^«^^'^^^)- 
moment    from    this    sentiency,   the    same    thing    applies    to 
animals     as    to    plants.       They    are    finite,    merely    natural 
creatures,    not     ends    in    themselves,    but    subserving     some 
general  use  in  the  economy  of  nature,  and,  by  the  law  of  their 
creation,   exposed    to    corruption   and   death.       How   is    this 
modified  by  the  fact  of  sentiency  ?     I  think  we  have  only  to 
look  at  the  matter  fairly  to  see  that  it  is  not  modified  in  any  Relation  to 
way  which  is  incompatible  with  the  justice  and  goodness  of  ^''"^J^^  ^^^ 
the  Creator.     Leaving  out  of  reckoning  the  pain  of  human  Creator. 
life,  and  the  sufferings  inflicted  on  the  animal  world  by  man, 

1  Cf.  Ott,  Le  ProhUme  du  Mai,  p.  18  ;  Naville,  do.  p.  50  (Eng.  trans.). 
'^  These  disturbances,  however,  present  a  very  different  aspect  when  viewed  in 
relation  to  man.     See  below. 
^  Gen.  i.  11,  12  (seed  producing). 


220   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


Is  the  world  of  we  might  fairly  ask  the  pessimist  to  face  the  question,  Is  the 
'anunhapp^^  world  of  Sentient  beings  an  unhappy  one  ?  Look  at  the  fish 
one?  in  the  stream,  the  bird  in  the  air,  the  insect  on  the  wing,  the 

creatures  of  the  forest, — is  their  lot  one  of  greater  pleasure 
or  pain  ?  I  do  not  think  it  is  unhappy.  We  speak  of  "  the 
struggle  for  existence,"  but  is  this  necessarily  pain  ?  The 
capacity  for  pleasure,  indeed,  implies  as  its  counterpart  the 
susceptibility  of  pain,  but  whereas  the  avenues  for  pleasure 
are  many,  the  experience  of  pain  is  minimised  by  the  sudden- 
ness with  which  death  comes,  the  absence  of  the  power  of 
reflection,  the  paralysis  of  feeling  through  fascination  or 
excitement,  etc.^  I  have  been  struck  with  observing  the 
The  Biblical  predominatingly  optimistic  way  in  which  the  Bible,  and 
vuw  of  nature  especially  Jesus,  all  throuojh  regard  the  natural  and  sentient 

predominat-  ^  J  o  &    ^ 

ingly  world,  dwelling  on  its  brightness,  its  beauty,  its  rejoicing,  the 

optimistic.  (,g^j.Q  Q^  Providence  over  the  creatures,  their  happy  freedom,^ 
— in  striking  contrast  with  the  morbid  brooding  over  the 
aspects  of  struggle  in  nature  which  fill  our  modern  treatises,^ 
The  thing  which  strikes  us  most  as  a  difficulty,  perhaps,  is 
the  universal  preying  of  species  on  species — "  nature  red  in 
tooth  and  claw  "  * — which  seems  so  strange  a  feature  in  a 
government  assumed  to  have  for  its  motive  beneficence.  But 
the  difficulty  is  modified  by  the  consideration  that  food  in 
some  way  must  be  provided  for  the  creatures ;  and  if 
sentiency  is  better  than  insentiency,  greater  beneficence  is 
shown  in  giving  the  bird  or  insect  its  brief  span  of  life  than 

^  We  may  exaggerate,  too,  the  power  of  sensibility  in  the  lower  species  of 
animals.  See  on  this,  Mivart,  Lessonfi  from  Nature,  pp.  368,  369.  "Though, 
of  course,  animals  feel,  they  do  not  know  that  they  feel,  nor  reflect  upon  the 
sufferings  they  have  had,  or  will  have  to  endure.  ...  If  a  wasp,  while  enjoying 
a  meal  of  honey,  has  its  slender  waist  suddenly  snipped  through  and  its  whole 
abdomen  cut  away,  it  does  not  allow  such  a  trifle  for  a  moment  to  interrupt  its 
pleasurable  repast,  but  it  continues  to  rapidly  devour  the  savoury  food,  which 
escapes  as  rapidly  from  its  mutilated  thorax." — P.  369. 

2  E.g.  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  Matt.  vi.  26.  Another  note  as  respects 
creation  as  a  whole  is  struck  by  Paul  in  Rom.  viii.  19-22. 

^  Cf.  for  an  example  of  this  a  passage  quoted  from  De  Maistre  by  Naville, 
p.  54.  "In  the  vast  domain  of  living  Nature  open  violence  reigns,  a  kind  of 
fury  which  arms  all  creatures  in  midua fiinera,^''  etc. 

*  Tennyson,  In  Memoriam,  Iv. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  2 2 1 

in  withholding  existence  from  it  altogether.  The  present 
plan  provides  for  the  multiplication  of  sentient  creatures  to 
an  extent  which  would  not  be  possible  on  any  other  system ; 
it  provides,  too,  since  death  must  rule  over  such  organisms, 
for  their  removal  from  nature  in  the  way  which  least  pollutes 
nature  with  corruption.^ 

The  real  question  which  underlies  the  problem  in  relation  Real  question 
to  the  natural  world  is, — Is  there  to  be  room  in  the  universe  ~"  ^^^^'^  ^^  ^^ 

room  for 

for  any  grades  of  existence  short  of  the  highest  ?  In  nature,  gradation  of 
as  the  evolutionist  is  fond  of  showing,  we  find  every  blank  ^-^"^^'^^^-^ -^ 
space  filled — every  corner  and  niche  that  would  be  otherwise 
empty  occupied  by  some  form  of  life.  Why  should  it  not  be 
so  ?  If,  in  addition  to  the  higher  orders  of  being,  lower 
grades  of  sentient  existence  are  possible,  enhancing  the  total 
sum  of  life  and  happiness,  why  should  they  not  also  be 
created  ?  Why — to  give  our  thoughts  for  a  moment  the 
widest  possible  range — if  there  is  in  the  universe,  as  Dorner 
supposes,  "  a  world  standing  in  the  light  of  eternity,  a  world 
of  pure  spirits,  withdrawn  from  all  relation  to  succession "  ^ 
(the  angelic  world),  should  there  not  be  also  a  material  and 
time-developing  world  ?  Why,  in  this  temporal  world,  should 
there  be  only  the  highest  creature,  man,  and  not  also  an 
infinity  of  creatures  under  him,  stocking  the  seas,  rivers, 
plains,  forests,  and  taking  possession  of  every  vacant  opening 
and  nook  which  present  themselves  ?  Or,  in  a  developing 
world,  could  the  highest  be  reached  except  through  the 
lower — the   spiritual   except  through   the  natural  ?     Is   not 

^  Martineau  says  :  "I  will  be  content  with  a  single  question,  How  would  you 
dispose  of  the  dead  animals  ?  .  .  .  If  no  creature  would  touch  muscular  fibre, 
or  adipose  tissue,  or  blood,  and  all  animated  nature  had  to  be  provided  with 
cemeteries  like  ours,  we  should  be  baffled  by  an  unmanageable  problem  ;  the 
streams  would  be  poisoned,  and  the  forests  and  the  plains  would  be  as  noisome 
as  the  recent  battlefield.  Nature,  in  her  predatory  tribes,  has  appointed  a 
sanitary  commission,  and  in  her  carrion- feeders  a  burial  board,  far  more  effective 
than  tliose  which  watch  over  our  villages  and  cities." — Study  of  Beligion,  ii. 
p.  95.     See  his  whole  treatment  of  this  problem, 

'^  System,  of  Doctrine,  ii.  pp.  33,  99  (Eng.  trans.).  Dorner  mentions  the  idea 
of  Aquinas  of  "a  complete  world,  exhibiting  without  a  break  a^l  possible  forms 
of  life."— P.  99. 


2  22    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


The  questioji 
altered  when 
we  rise  to 
rational  self- 
conscious  man 
— a  being  who 
is  end  to  him- 
self. 


The  disciplin- 
ary benefits  of 
suffering,  etc., 
inadequate  as 
a  complete 
solution : 
discussion  of 
this  theory. 


this  the  law  of  Scripture,  as  well  as  of  nature — "  that  was 
not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural,  and 
afterwards  that  which  is  spiritual."  ^  The  mere  fact  that  in  a 
world  of  this  kind  the  denizens  would  be  finite  and  perish- 
able— exposed  to  incidental  pains,  as  well  as  constituted  for 
pleasures — would  not  be  a  reason  for  not  creating  it,  unless 
the  pains  were  a  predominant  feature,  and  constituted  a 
surplusage  over  the  pleasures.  But  this  we  do  not  acknow- 
ledge to  be  the  case.  The  pleasures  of  the  animal  world  we 
take  to  be  the  rule ;  the  pains  are  the  exception.^ 

It  is  when  we  rise  from  the  animal  world  to  the  considera- 
tion of  natural  evil  in  relation  to  man  that  we  first  meet 
with  the  problem  in  a  form  which  constitutes  it  a  formidable 
difficulty.  For  man,  unlike  the  animals,  is  an  end  to  him- 
self; pain  means  more  to  him  than  it  does  to  them;  death, 
in  particular,  seems  a  contradiction  of  his  destiny ;  and  it  is 
not  easy  to  understand  why  he  should  be  placed  in  a  world 
in  which  he  is  naturally,  nay  necessarily,  exposed  to  these 
evils.  The  natural  disturbances  which  we  formerly  noticed 
— floods,  hurricanes,  earthquakes,  volcanoes,  and  the  like — 
now  assume  a  new  aspect  as  elements  in  a  world  of  which 
man  is  to  be  the  inhabitant,  and  where  he  may  be  called 
upon  to  suffer  through  their  agency.'"^  This  is  really  a  serious 
problem,  and  we  have  to  ask  whether  the  Biblical  view 
affords  any  clue  to  the  solution  of  it,  and  whether  that 
solution  will  sustain  the  test  of  reason  and  of  fact  ?  ^ 

It  is  scarcely  an  adequate  solution  of  this  problem  of 
natural  evil  and  death  as  it  affects  man,  though,  no  doubt,  a 


1  1  Cor.  XV.  i^. 

2  The  difficulty  is  "  modified, "  as  said,  but  not  altogether  removed  by  these 
considerations,  especially  when  the  world  is  viewed  in  its  teleological  relations 
to  man,  and  when  stress  is  laid,  not  only  on  the  mere  fact  of  the  preying  of 
one  creature  on  another,  but  on  some  of  the  hinds  of  creatures  with  which  the 
earth  is  stocked,  and  on  the  manner  of  their  warfare  ;  on  their  hideousness, 
repulsiveness,  fierceness,  unnecessary  cruelty,  etc.  See  a  powerful  statement  in 
Martensen's  Jacob  Bohme,  pp.  217-222  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  To  a  certain  extent  these  disturbances  atfect  animals  also,  but  in  these  cases 
the  question  is  subordinate. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  223 

profound  element  in  the  solution,  to  point  to  the  disciplinary 
and  other  wholesome  uses  which  misfortune  and  suffering  are 
fitted  to  subserve  in  the  moral  education  of  man.  This  is 
the  line  followed  by  most  earnest  thinkers  in  trying  to 
explain  the  mystery  of  suffering  in  the  world,  and  it  rests  on 
the  true  thought  that  there  is  a  Divinely  ordained  connection 
between  the  pains  we  are  called  upon  to  suffer  and  the  ends 
of  our  highest  life.^  Without  trials  and  difficulties,  it  is 
urged,  where  were  progress ;  without  checks  to  self-will, 
where  were  the  lessons  of  submission  to  a  higher  will ;  with- 
out experience  of  resistance,  where  were  the  stimulus  to 
effort ;  without  danger  and  misfortune,  where  were  courage, 
manhood,  and  endurance ;  without  pain,  where  were  sym- 
pathy ;  2  without  sorrow  and  distress,  where  would  the  oppor- 
tunity for  self-sacrifice  be  ?  This  is  quite  true,  but  does  it 
go  to  the  root  of  the  matter  ?  Does  it  explain  all  ?  Because 
suffering  and  death,  as  existing  in  the  world,  have  an  educat- 
ing and  purifying  effect ;  because,  as  may  be  freely  granted, 
they  have  a  power  of  developing  a  type  of  character  greater 
and  nobler  than  could  have  been  developed  without  them 
(a  glimpse  of  a  theodicy  in  the  permission  of  evil  at  all) ; 
because  they  serve  for  purposes  of  test  and  trial  where 
character  is  already  formed,  and  aid  its  yet  ampler  growth^ — 
does  it  follow  that  a  world  such  as  this,  with  its  manifold 
disorders,  would  have  been  a  suitable  abode  for  an  unfallen 
race ;  or  that  it  would  have  been  righteous  to  expose  such  a 
race  to  these  calamities ;  or  that,  in  the  case  of  pure  beings, 
less  violent  and  painful  methods  of  education  would  not  have 
sufficed?  *     Of  course,  if  this  method  of  arguing  were  admitted, 

I  Thus  Rothe,  PfleiJerer,  Martineau,  Ott,  etc. 
^  Cf.  Browning,  Ferishtah's  Fayicies — **Mihrab  Shah." 
^  The  theodicy  in.  Job  takes  this  form. 

■*  Cf.  Lotze,  Outlines  of  Philosophy  of  Religion  (Eng.  trans.),  pp.  124,  125  ; 
and  Browning,  La  Saisiaz,  Works,  xiv.  p.  181  :  — 
"  What,  no  way  but  this  that  man  may  learn  and  lay  to  heart  how  rife 
Life  were  with  delights  would  only  death  allow  their  taste  to  life  ? 
Must  the  rose  sigh  *  Pluck— I  perish  ! '  must  the  eve  weep  '  Gaze— I  fade  ! ' 
— Every  sweet  warn  '  'Ware  my  bitter  ! '  every  shine  bid  '  Wait  my  shade  '  ? 


224    THE  POSTULATE  OE  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

the  existence  of  moral  evils  would  have  to  be  justified  on  the 
same  ground,  for  in  conflict  with  these,  even  more  than  with 
outward  misfortune,  is  the  highest  type  of  character  developed. 
It  will  be  observed,  also,  that  the  argument  rests  largely, 
though  not  wholly,  on  the  assumption  of  fault  in  human 
nature  to  be  corrected  (self-will,  selfishness,  etc.),  and  thus 
already  presupposes  sin ;  it  does  not,  for  instance,  tell  what  a 
world  would  have  been  into  which  no  sin  had  entered.  But 
do  even  the  advocates  of  this  explanation  of  natural  evil  abide 
by  their  own  thesis  ?  Pain,  it  is  said,  begets  tenderness  and 
sympathy ;  suffering  engenders  philanthropy  ;  the  presence  of 
evils  in  the  world  awakens  noble  self-sacrificing  efforts  for 
their  removal — summons  man,  as  Pfleiderer  puts  it,  to  fellow- 
ship with  "  the  aim  of  God  Himself,  viz.  to  advance  goodness, 
and  to  overcome  evil  in  the  world."  ^  Then  these  are  evils, 
and  notwithstanding  their  advantages,  we  are  to  treat  them 
as  things  which  would  be  better  absent,  and  do  our  utmost  to 
remove  them.  A  concrete  case  in  this  connection  is  worth  a 
good  deal  of  argument,  and  I  take  it  from  Naville.  He  tells 
of  a  letter  he  received,  written  from  Zurich,  at  a  time  when 
the  cholera  was  ravaging  the  city.  "My  correspondent,"  he 
says,  "  told  me  that  he  had  seen  sad  things — the  results  of 
selfishness  and  fear ;  but  he  also  told  me  that  so  much 
courage,  devotedness,  and  regard  for  the  good  of  others  had 
been  brought  out  under  the  pressure  of  the  malady,  that 
different  ranks  of  society  had  been  so  drawn  together  by 
the  inspiration  of  generous  sentiments,  that  he  would  not  for 
the  world  have  been  absent  from  his  native  place,  and  so 
have  missed  witnessing  such  a  spectacle."  ^  Shall  we  then, 
because  of  these  salutary  effects,  wish  for  the  prevalence  of 
cholera  ?      Or   because   wars   bring   out    noble   examples    of 

Can  we  love  but  on  condition  that  the  thing  we  love  must  die  ? 

Needs  there  groan  a  world  in  anguish  just  to  teach  us  sympathy — 

Multitudinously  wretched  that  we,  wretched  too,  may  guess 

What  a  preferable  state  were  universal  happiness  ? " 
^  Religiomphilosophie,  iv.  p.  63  (Eng.  trans.). 
2  Problem  of  Evil,  p.  65  (Eng.  trans.). 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  225 

heroism,  shall  we  desire  to  see  wars  prevail  ?     The  question 
has   only   to    be  asked   to  be  answered,  and  it  shows   that  ~^  ~ 

this  mode  of  justifying  natural  evil  leaves  much  yet  to  be 
accounted  for. 

It  has  just  been  seen  that  even  this  mode  of  explaining  The  connection 
the  existence  of  natural  evil,  and  the  use  made  of  it  in  the  ^/'^f^^'f^  ^^^  ^ 

with  sin : 

moral  government  of  God,  presupposes,  to  some  extent,  the  nature  and 
existence   of  sin.      This  yields  a  point  of  transition  to  the  ^^^"^^^^^I'^^^^y 

of  this  con- 

Biblical  view,  in  which  this  solidarity  of  man  with  his  out-  nection, 
ward  world,  and  the  consequent  connection  of  rational  with 
moral  evil,  is  a  central  and  undeniable  feature.  We  are  not, 
indeed,  at  liberty  to  trace  a  strict  relation  between  the  sins 
of  individuals  and  the  outward  calamities  that  befall  them ; 
but  Christ's  warning  on  this  subject  by  no  means  contradicts 
the  view  that  there  is  an  intimate  connection  between  natural 
and  moral  evils,  and  that  the  former  are  often  used  by  God 
as  the  punishment  of  the  latter.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
deeply  ingrained  ideas  in  the  Bible  that  physical  evils  are 
often  used  by  God  for  the  punishment  of  individual  and 
national  wickedness,  and  Christ  Himself  expressly  endorses 
this  view  in  His  own  predictions  of  the  approaching  judg- 
ments on  Jerusalem.^  He  warns  us  only  that  the  proposition 
—  sin  is  often  punished  with  physical  evils — is  by  no  means 
convertible  with  the  other, — all  physical  evils  are  the  punish- 
ment of  individual  sins.  Nor  is  this  teaching  of  Scripture  to 
be  explained  away,  as  it  is  by  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  and  Eitschl, 
as  meaning  merely  that  the  evil  conscience  subjectively 
regards  these  visitations  as  retributive,  though  objectively 
they  have  no  such  character,  but  simply  flow  from  the 
natural  course  of  events.^  Similarly,  the  expression,  "All 
things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that  love  God,"  ^ 
is  explained  as  meaning  that  things  work  together  for  good 

^  Matt,  xxiii.  35  ;  cf.  John  v.  14  :  "Sin  no  more,  lest  a  worse  thing  come 
unto  thee." 

^  Cf.,  e.i/.,  Ritschl,  Rtcld.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  334;  Pfleiderer,  Bcligionsphilo- 
.sophie,  iv.  jip.  42-44. 

■^  Kom.  viii.  28. 

15 


226    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

to  the  believer  because,  whatever  the  course  of  events,  he  is 
sure  to  profit  by  them.  This  is  not  the  Biblical  view,  and  it 
is  not  a  reasonable  one  for  those  to  take  who,  like  the  above- 
named  writers,  admit  a  government  of  the  world  for  moral 
ends.  Once  allow  a  relation  between  the  natural  and  the 
moral  in  the  government  of  God,  and  it  is  difficult  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  the  course  of  outward  events  is  directed 
with  a  regard  to  the  good  and  evil  conduct  of  the  subjects  of 
that  government. 
The  deeper  A  deeper  qucstioH,  however,  which  lies  behind  this  imme- 

question—h     ^^^^^  qj^q^  ^f  ^^  placc  of  natural  evils  in  the  moral  govern- 

nature  itself 

in  a  normal     mcut  of  God  is,  Is  nature  itself  in  a  normal  condition  ?     The 
condition?       Bible,  again,  undeniably  answers  this  question  in  the  negative, 

7^he  Biblical  . 

answer  ^.ud  it  is  important  for  us  to  ascertain  in  what  sense  pre- 

negative.  cisely  it  docs  SO.  The  most  explicit  passage  in  the  New 
Testament  is  perhaps  that  in  Eom.  viii.  19-23,  where  the 
The  Pauline  Apostlc  Paul  cxprcssly  declares,  "  For  the  earnest  expectation 
view:  what  it  q£  ^j^q  creation  waiteth  for  the  revealing  of  the  sons  of  God. 
For  the  creation  was  subjected  to  vanity,  not  of  its  own  will, 
but  by  reason  of  Him  who  subjected  it,  in  hope  that  the 
creation  itself  also  shall  be  delivered  from  the  bondage  of 
corruption  into  the  liberty  of  the  glory  of  the  children  of 
God.  For  we  know  that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now."  The  plain  implica- 
tion of  this  passage  is  that  nature  is  a  sufferer  with  man  on 
account  of  sin ;  that,  as  I  expressed  it  above,  there  is  a 
solidarity  between  man  and  the  outward  world,  both  in  his 
Fall  and  his  Eedemption.  So  far  the  passage  is  an  echo  of 
the  statement  in  Genesis  that  the  earth  lies  under  a  curse 
on  account  of  human  sin.  Is  this  view  scientifically  tenable, 
or  is  it  not  a  baseless  dream,  directly  contradicted  by  the  facts 
already  conceded  of  physical  disturbance,  decay,  and  death 
in  the  world,  long  ere  man  appeared  in  it  ?  I  do  not  think 
it  is.  This  implication  of  creation  in  the  effects  of  human  sin, 
though  science  certainly  cannot  prove  it,  is  an  idea  by  no 
means  inadmissible,  or  in  contradiction  with  known  facts. 


itnplies. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  227 

1.  The  view  has  often  been  suggested — is  maintained,  e.g.,  i.  Theory  that 
by  Dorner  and  Delitzsch^ — that  the  constitution  of  nature  had  '^^^^''^  ^-^ 

from  the  first  a 

from  the  first  a  teleological  relation  to  sin ;  that  sin  did  not  teleologkal 
enter  the  world  as  an  unforeseen  accident,  but,  as  foreseen,  ^^^^fion  to 

.  PI  human  sin. 

was  provided  tor  m  the  arrangements  of  the  world;  that 
creation,  in  other  words,  had  from  the  beginning  an  anticipa- 
tive  reference  to  sin.  This  view  would  explain  many  things 
that  seem  mysterious  in  the  earlier  stages  of  creation,  and 
falls  in  with  other  truths  of  Scripture,  to  which  attention  will 
subsequently  be  directed.^ 

2.  I  do  not  feel,  however,  that  I  need  to  avail  myself  of  2.  The 

this  hypothesis.     All  that  is  essential  in  the  Apostle's  state-  ^^^f  ^^^^^^^' 
ment   can  be   conserved  without  going  back  to  pre-Adamic  subjection  of 
ages,  or  to  vegetable  decay,  and  animal  suffering  and  death,  ^f ^  <^^^(^i^on  to 
We  gain  the  best  key  to  the  passage  if  we  keep  to  the  mean- 
ing of  his  own  word  "  vanity  "  (/iaratoT?;?) — profitlessness — 
as  expressive  of  that  to  which  creation  was  subjected.     "  It 
is  not  said,"  remarks  Bishop  Ellicott,  "  that  the  creation  was 
subject  to  death  or  corruption,  though  both  lie  involved  in 
the  expression,  but  to  something  more  frightfully  generic,  to 
something  almost  worse  than  non-existence, — to  purposeless- 
ness,  to  an  inability  to  realise  its    natural    tendencies,  and 
the   ends   for    which    it   was    called   into    being,    to    baffled 
endeavour  and  mocked  expectations,  to  a  blossoming  and  not 
bearing  fruit,  a  pursuing  and  not  attaining,  yea,  and  as  the 
analogies  of  the  language  of  the  original  significantly  imply, 

^  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  p.  67  (Eng.  trans. ) ;  Delitzsch,  New  Com- 
mentary on  Genesis,  i.  p.  103  (Eng.  trans.).  "The  whole  of  the  six  days' 
creation,"  says  the  latter,  "is,  so  to  speak,  supralapsarian,  i.e.  so  constituted 
that  the  consequences  of  this  foreseen  fall  of  man  were  taken  into  account." 

^  This  theory  is  ingeniously  argued  out  in  an  interesting  chapter  in  Bush- 
naW^  Nature  and  the  Supernatural,  chap,  vii.,  "  Anticipative  Consequences." 
Of.  also  Hugh  Miller's  Footprints  of  the  Creator,  pp.  268  ff . ;  "Final  Causes  ; 
their  Bearing  on  Geologic  History ; "  and  Hitchcock,  Religion  of  Geology, 
Lecture  III.  I  have  not  touched  on  another  theory,  beginning  with  Bohme, 
which  connects  the  present  state  of  creation  with  yet  earlier,  i.e.  daemonic  evil. 
The  most  striking  statement  of  this  theory  is  perhaps  in  Marten  sen,  Jacob 
Bohme  (Eng.  trans,),  pp.  217-222 — a  passage  already  referred  to.  See  the 
theory  criticised  in  Reusch's  Nature  and  the  Bible,  Book  i.  chap.  xvii.  (Eng. 
trans.). 


228    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

to  a  searching  and  never  finding."^  Thus  interpreted,  the 
apostle's  words  convey  the  idea  that  nature  is  in  a  state  of 
arrested  development  through  sin,  is  frustrated  of  its  true 
end,  and  has  a  destiny  before  it  which  sin  does  not  permit  it  to 
attain.  There  is  an  arrest,  delay,  or  back-putting  through  sin, 
which  begets  in  the  creature  a  sense  of  bondage,  and  an  earnest 
longing  for  deliverance.^  This  certainly  harmonises  sufficiently 
well  with  the  general  impression  nature  makes  upon  us,  which 
has  found  expression  in  the  poetry  and  literature  of  all  ages. 
3.  The  earth  3.  The  earth  is  under  "  bondage  to  corruption  "  in  another 
on  age  0    ^     — .^   ^j^^  ^        presence   of    man  and  his  sin  upon  it ; 

cormption  *' '  j     r  r  » 

through  the     in    being  the  abode  of    a  sinful    race ;  in    being  compelled, 
very  presence    .(^j^rough  its  laws  and  a^encics,  to  subserve  the  purposes   of 

of  man  and  MS  °  o  '  jt      x 

sin  upon  it.  man's  sin ;  in  being  perverted  from  its  true  uses  in  the 
service  of  his  lusts  and  vices ;  in  the  suffering  of  the  animal 
creation  through  his  cruelty ;  in  the  blight,  famine,  earth- 
quake, etc.,  to  which  it  is  subjected  in  consequence  of  his  sin, 
and  as  the  means  of  punishment  of  it.  For  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  because  these  things  were  found  in  the  world  in 
the  making,  they  were  intended  to  be,  or  continue,  in  the 
world  as  made,  or  would  have  been  found  had  sin  not 
entered  it.  Science  may  affirm,  it  can  certainly  never  prove, 
that  the  world  is  in  a  normal  state  in  these  respects,  or  that 
even  under  existing  laws,  a  better  balance  of  harmony  could 
not  be  maintained,  had  the  Creator  so  willed  it. 

///.  Cuimina-      III.  This  wholc  discussion  of  the   connection  of  natural 
tionoftiis      ^-^j^  moral  evil  sums  itself  up  in  the  consideration  of  one 

problem  m  the  ^ 

question  of  the  Special  problem,  in  which  the  contending  views  may  be  said 
relation  of  sin  ^^  |^g  brought   to  a   distinct   and  decisive  issue  —  I  mean 

to  death.  ° 

the  relation  of  sin  to  death.     Is  human  death — that  crown- 

^  Destiny  of  the  Creature,  p.  7. 

^  Thus  also  Dorner :  "So  far,  then,  as  sin  retards  this  perfection,  it  may 
certainly  be  said  that  Nature  is  detained  by  sin  in  a  state  of  corruption  against 
its  will,  as  well  as  that  it  has  been  placed  in  a  long-enduring  state  of  corrupt- 
ibleness,  which,  apart  from  sin,  was  unnecessary,  if  the  assimilation  of  Nature 
by  spirit  could  have  been  accomplished  forthwith." — Synt.  of  Doct.,  ii.  p.  QQ. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  229 

ing  evil,  which  carries  so  many  other  sorrows  in  its  train — 
the  result  of  sin,  or  is  it  not  ?  Here,  again,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  for  me  to  say,  there  is  a  direct  contradiction 
between  the  Biblical  and  the  "  modern  "  view,  and  it  is  for  us 
very  carefully  to  inquire  whether  the  Pauline  statement, 
"  Through  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death 
through  sin ;  and  so  death  passed  unto  all  men,  for  that  all 
have  sinned,"  ^  enters  into  the  essence  of  the  Christian  view, 
or  whether,  as  some  seem  to  think,  it  is  an  excrescence 
which  may  be  stripped  off. 

Now,  so  far  from  regarding  this  relation  of  human  death  to  This  relation 
sin  as  a  mere  accident  of  the  Christian  view,  which  may  be '^'^^.^^f'^t,, 

'  ''  accident  of  the 

dropped  without  detriment  to  its  substance,  I  am  disposed  to  Christian 
look  on  it  as  a  truth  most  fundamental  and  vital — orejanicallv  ^^^^'  '^"^   . 

°  ''  enters  into  its 

connected  with  the  entire  Christian  system.  Its  importance  essence. 
comes  out  most  clearly  when  we  consider  it  in  the  light  of 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  Eedemption.  The  Bible,  as  we 
shall  immediately  see,  knows  nothing  of  an  abstract  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  as  the  schools  speak  of  it;  nor  is  its 
Eedemption  a  Eedemption  of  the  soul  only,  but  of  the  body 
as  well.  It  is  a  Eedemption  of  man  in  his  whole  complex 
personality — body  and  soul  together.  It  was  in  the  body 
that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead;  in  the  body  that  He  has 
ascended  to  heaven ;  in  the  body  that  He  lives  and  reigns 
there  for  evermore.  It  is  His  promise  that,  if  He  lives,  we 
shall  live  also ;  ^  and  this  promise  includes  a  pledge  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  The  truth  which  underlies  this  is, 
that  death  for  man  is  an  effect  of  sin.  It  did  not  lie  in  the 
Creator's  original  design  for  man  that  he  should  die, — that 
these  two  component  parts  of  his  nature,  body  and  soul, 
should  ever  be  violently  disrupted  and  severed,  as  death  now 
severs  them.  Death  is  an  abnormal  fact  in  the  history  of  the 
race ;  and  Eedemption  is,  among  other  things,  the  undoing  of 
this  evil,  and  the  restoration  of  man  to  his  normal  complete- 
ness as  a  personal  being. 

1  Rom.  V.  12  (R.y.).  2  Jolm  xiv.  19. 


230   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 


its  present 
tiniversality. 


iiie  original        That  man  was  originally  a  mortal  being  neither  follows 
vwi  a  I  y  of     from  the  fact  of  death  as  a  law  of  the  animal  creation,  nor 

via7t  proved  ' 

neither  by  the  from  its  present  Universality.     It  is,  no  doubt,  an  essential 
law  of  death       ^^^  ^^  ^^^  modem  anti-Christian  view,  that  man  is  a  dying 

in  the  animal  '  j      o 

creation,  nor  creature,  and  always  has  been.  This  goes  with  the  view  that 
man  is  simply  an  evolution  from  the  animal,  and  falls  under 
the  same  law  of  death  as  the  rest  of  the  animal  creation. 
But  I  have  shown  some  reasons  for  not  admitting  the 
premiss,^  and  therefore  I  cannot  assent  to  the  conclusion. 
There  is  not  a  word  in  the  Bible  to  indicate  that  in  its 
Distinction  of  vicw  death  entered  the  animal  world  as  a  consequence  of  the 
man  from  the  gi^^  ^f  ^^^^     g^^^  ^-^j^  ^j^^  advent  of  man  upon  the  scene, 

animals.  ^ 

there  was,  as  remarked  in  an  earlier  part  of  the  Lecture,  the 
introduction  of  something  new.  There  now  appeared  at  the 
head  of  creation  a  moral  and  spiritual  being — a  being  made 
in  God's  image — a  rational  and  accountable  being — a  being 
for  the  first  time  capable  of  moral  life,  and  bearing  within 
him  infinite  possibilities  of  progress  and  happiness;  and  it 
does  not  follow  that  because  mere  animals  are  subject  to  a 
law  of  death,  a  being  of  this  kind  must  be.  More  than  this, 
it  is  the  distinction  of  man  from  the  animals  that  he  is 
immortal,  and  they  are  not.  He  bears  in  his  nature  the 
various  evidences  that  he  has  a  destiny  stretching  out  far 
into  the  future — into  eternity;  and  many  even,  who  hold 
that  death  is  not  a  consequence  of  sin,  do  not  dispute  that 
his  soul  is  immortal.  But  here  is  the  difficulty  in  which 
such  a  view  is  involved.  The  soul  is  not  the  whole  of  the 
man.  It  is  a  false  view  of  the  constitution  of  human 
mg  of  essential  nature  to  regard  the  body  as  a  mere  appendaore  to  the  soul, 

parts  of  his  i.  x  o 

being:  there-  ^r  to  supposc  that  the  humau  being  can  be  equally  com- 
fore  abjiormai.  piete  whether  he  has  his  body,  or  is  deprived  of  it.  This  is 
not  the  Biblical  view,  nor,  I  venture  to  say,  is  it  the  view 
to  which  the  facts  of  modern  psychology  and  physiology 
point.  If  anything  is  evident,  it  is  that  soul  and  body  are 
made    for   each  other,   that   the   perfect  life   for    man    is  a 

1  Cf.  last  Lecture. 


Created  for 
immortality. 


Death  a  con- 
tradiction of 
man's  nature 
— the  sunder- 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  231 

corporeal  one;   that  he  is  not  pure  spirit,  but  incorporated 

spirit.     The  soul  is  capable  of  separation  from  the  body ;  but  ~  - 

in  that  state  it  is  in  an  imperfect  and  mutilated  condition. 

Thus   it   is   always   represented   in   the    Bible,  and    heathen 

feeling  coincides  with  this  view  in  its  representations  of  the 

cheerless,    sunless,  joyless,    ghost-like,  state    of    Hades.      If 

then,  it    is    held    that    man    was    naturally   constituted   for 

immortality,   how   can    it  be  maintained,  with  any  show  of 

consistency,  that  he  stood  originally  under  a  law  of   death  ? 

That    the    animal    should    die    is    natural.       But    for    the 

rational,    moral    agent,    death    is    something    -imnatural  — 

abnormal ;    the    violent    rupture,   or    separation,    or    tearing 

apart,    so    to    speak,    of    two   parts    of    his    nature    which, 

in     the     Creator's    design,    were     never     intended     to     be 

sundered.       There     is,     therefore,     profound     truth    in     the 

Biblical    representation,    "  In    the    day    that    thou    eatest 

thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die  " — "  Dust  thou  art,  and  unto 

dust    thou   shalt    return."  ^       Some    other   way   of    leaving 

the  world,  no  doubt,  there  would  have  been — some  Enoch 

or    Elijah  -  like    translation,    or    gradual    transformation    of 

a   lower    corporeity    into   a    higher,   but    not    death    as    we 

know  it.2 

The  true  Biblical  doctrine  of  immortality  then,  I  think,  The  Biblical 
includes  the  following  points  :—  ^"'^''''^f  f 

1.   It   rests   on   the   Biblical   doctrine   of    human   nature,  j.  j^^sts  on 
According   to   the   Bible,   and   according    to   fact,  man    is  a  Biblical 

,  .     .  Ti       ^     1  1     1  1  •   •.    doctrine  of  the 

compound  bemg — not,  like  God  and  the  angels  a  pure  spirit,  ^^^^^^  ^^  ^^^,^ 
but   an  embodied  spirit,  a  being  made   up  of  body   and  oi  ^s  a  comj>otmd 
soul.     The    soul,  it    is    true,  is  the  higher   part   of   human       ^* 
nature,  the    seat  of   personality,  and  of  mental,  moral,  and 
spiritual    life.     Yet   it   is  intended  and  adapted   for  life  in 
the  body,  and  body  and  soul  together  make  the  man — the 
complete  human  being. 

1  Gen.  ii.  16,  iii.  19. 

2  See  furtlier  on  this  subject,   Note  H.  —  The  Connection    of    Sin  and 
Death. 


232    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW 

2.  No  part  of       2.  It    was   no   part   of  the    Creator's    design  for  man   in 
the  Creator's    j^-g   \^q^   constitution   that   body   and  soul  should   ever   be 

design  that  ,  " 

body  and  soul  Separated.       The    immortality   man   was    to    enjoy    was    an 
should  be         immortality  in  which  the  body  was  to  have  its  share.     This 

separated. 

is  the  profound  truth  in  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  when  it 
says  that,  as  respects  man,  death  is  the  result  of  sin.  Had 
sin  not  entered  we  must  suppose  that  man — the  complete 
man — would  have  enjoyed  immortality ;  even  his  body,  its 
energies  replenished  from  vital  forces  from  within,  being 
exempt  from  decay,  or  at  least  not  decaying  till  a  new  and 
more  spiritual  tenement  for  the  soul  had  been  prepared. 
With  the  entrance  of  sin,  and  departure  of  holiness  from  the 
soul,  this  condition  ceased,  and  the  body  sank,  as  part  of 
general  nature,  under  the  law  of  death. 

3.  Thesouiin       3.  The  soul  in  separation  from  the  body  is  in  a  state  of 
separation       imperfection   and   mutilation.      When   a   human   being  loses 

from  the  body  c>      •     ^'     ^  • 

is  in  a  state  of  One  of  his  limbs,  we  regard  him  as  a  mutilated  being.     Were 
imperfection     \^q  ^q  losc  all  his    limbs,  we  would    regard    him    as    worse 
tion:  inter-     mutilated  Still.     So  when  the  soul  is  entirely  denuded  of  its 
mediate  state,   body,  though  consciousucss  and  memory  yet  remain,  it  must 
still  be  regarded — and  in  the  Bible  is  regarded — as  subsist- 
ing in  an  imperfect  condition,  a  condition  of  enfeebled  life, 
diminished  powers,  restricted  capacities  of  action — a  state,  in 
short,    of    deprivation.     The    man    whose    life    is    hid    with 
Christ  in  God  will  no  doubt  with  that  life  retain  the  blessed- 
ness that  belongs  to  it  even  in  the  state  of  separation  from 
the  body — he  will  be  with  Christ,  which  is  far  better ;  ^  but 
it  is  still  true  that  so  long  as  he  remains  in  that  disembodied 
state,  he  wants  part  of    himself,    and    cannot    be    perfectly 
blessed,  as  he  will  be  after  his  body,  in  renewed  and  glorified 
form,  is  restored  to  him. 

4.  The  true  4.  The   last   point,  therefore,  in   the  Biblical  doctrine   is 
immortality  is  |.j^^|.  ^^^^  immortality  is  throui^h  Eedemption,  and  that  this 

through  Re-  ^  o  r  » 

demption,  and  Redemption  embraces  the  resurrection  of  the  body.^     It  is  a 

embraces  the 

resurrection  of  ^2  Cor.  v.  8 ;  Phil.  i.  23  ;  Rev.  xiv.  13,  etc. 

the  body.  "  Rom.  v.  11,  viii.  23. 


IN  REGARD  TO  SIN  AND  DISORDER.  233 

complete  Eedemption,  a  Eedemption  of  man  in  his  whole 
personality,  and  not  simply  of  a  part  of  man.  This  is  a 
subject  which  will  be  considered  afterwards.  It  is  enough  for 
the  present  to  have  shown  that  the  Biblical  doctrines  of  man's 
nature,  of  the  connection  of  sin  and  death,  of  Eedemption,  and 
of  the  true  immortality,  cohere  together  and  form  a  unity — 
are  of  a  piece. 


APPENDIX    TO   LECTUEE   V. 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY. 

Bearing  oj      The  views  advanced  in  the  Lecture  have  an  important  bearing 
previous  dis-^^    the    niuch    discussed    question    of    the    Old    Testament 

cussion  on  Old  ^ 

Testament       doctrine  of  immortality.     The  statement  is  often  made  that 
doctrine  of      ^j^^  q^j   Testament,  especially   in    the  older   books,  has    no 

ijnmortahty. 

distinct   doctrine  of   immortality.     Many   explanations   have 

been  offered  of  this  difficulty,  but  I  would  humbly  suggest 

that  the  real  explanation  may  be  that  we  have  been  looking 

This  doctrine  for  evidence  of  that  doctrine  in  a  wrong  direction.     We  have 

has  been  ^^^^^  lookin^?  for  a  doctrine  of  "  the  immortality  of  the  soul  " 

sought  for  in  a  ° 

wrong  direc-     in    the    scnsc    of    the    schools,    whereas    the    real    hope    of 
^^''"*  patriarchs  and  saints,  so  far  as  they  had  one,  was,  in  accord- 

ance with   the   Biblical  doctrine   already  explained,  that   of 
restored  life  in  the  body.^ 
The  Hebrew         The    early  Hebrews  had  no  manner  of  doubt,  any  more 
viewofSheol.  ^^^  ^^    \\.-dNQ,    that    the    soul,    or    spiritual    part    of    man, 
survived  the  body.^     It  would  be  strange  if   they  had,  for 
every  other  ancient  people  is  known  to  have  had  this  belief. 
Egyptians,       The    Egyptians,    e.g.y    taught    that    the    dead    descended    to 
Babylonians,    ^^  under  world,  where  they  were  judged  in  presence  of  Osiris 
and  his  forty-two  assessors.^     The  Babylonians  and  Assyrians 

1  The  view  defended  in  this  Appendix  will  be  found  indicated  in  Hofmann's 
Schriftheweis,  iii.  pp.  461-477  ;  and  Dr.  P.  Fairbairn's  Typology  of  Scripture, 
3rd  ed.  i.  pp.  343-359. 

■^  Cf.  Max  Miiller,  Anthropoloqical  Religion,  on  "Belief  on  Immortality  in 
the  Old  Testament,"  pp.  367,  377. 

'^  Cf.  Renouf,  Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  195,  196  ;  Budge,  Dwellers  on  the  Nile 
("Bye-Paths  of  Bible  Knowledge"  Series),  chap.  ix. ;  Vigouroux's  La  Bible  et 
les  Decouvertes  modernes,  iii.  pp.  133-141. 


LD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  235 

conceived  of  the  abode  of  the  dead  as  a  great  city  having 
seven  encircling  walls,  and  a  river  flowing  round  or  through  ~ 

it.^  A  name  they  gave  to  this  city  is  believed  by  some 
to  have  been  "  Sualu,"  ^  the  same  word  as  the  Hebrew  Sheol, 
which  is  the  name  in  the  Old  Testament  for  the  place 
of  departed  spirits.  It  is  one  of  the  merits  of  the  Eevised 
Version  that  it  has  in  many  places  (why  not  in  all  ?) 
printed  this  word  in  the  text,  and  tells  the  reader  in  the 
preface  that  "  Sheol,"  sometimes  in  the  Old  Version  trans- 
lated "grave,"  sometimes  "pit,"  sometimes  "hell,"  means 
definitely  "  the  abode  of  departed  spirits,  and  corresponds  to 
the  Greek  '  Hades,'  or  the  under  world,"  and  does  not  signify 
"  the  place  of  burial."  But  the  thought  of  going  to  "  Sheol " 
was  no  comfort  to  the  good  man.  The  gloomy  associations  Gloomy 
of  death  hung  over  this  abode ;  it  was  figured  as  a  land  of  «-^^^«'^^^^'"  ^« 

^  ^  '  °  Old  Testa- 

silence  and  forgetfulness ;  the  warm  and  rich  light  of  the  menu 
upper  world  was  excluded  from  it ;  ^  no  ray  of  gospel  light 
had  as  yet  been  given  to  chase  away  its  gloom.  The  idea  of 
"  Sheol "  was  thus  not  one  which  attracted,  but  one  which 
repelled,  the  mind.  Men  shrank  from  it  as  we  do  from  the 
breath  and  cold  shades  of  the  charnel-house.  The  saint, 
strong  in  his  hope  in  God,  might  believe  that  God  would  not 
desert  him  even  in  "Sheol";  that  His  presence  and  fellow- 
ship would  be  given  him  even  there ;  but  it  would  only  be  in 
moments  of  strong  faith  he  could  thus  triumph,  and  in  hours 
of  despondency  the  gloomiest  thoughts  were  apt  to  come 
back  on  him.  His  real  trust,  so  far  as  he  was  able  to 
cherish  one,  was  that  God  would  not  leave  his  soul  in  "  Sheol," 

'  Cf.  W\Q  Descent  of  Ishtar,  in  Sayce's  Hibbert  Lectures,  Lecture  IV.;  Budge's 
Babylonian  Life  and  History  ("Bye-Paths  of  Bible  Knowledge  "Series),  pp. 
140-142  ;  Vigouroux,  La  Bible  et  les  Decouvertes  modernes,  iii.  pp.  123-132. 

2  Thus  F.  Delitzsch,  and  Boscawen  in  British  Museum  Lecture,  on  Sheol, 
Death,  the  Grave,  and  Immortality.  But  the  identification  is  held  by  others 
to  be  conjectural  (Schrader,  Keilimchriften,  ii.  p.  80  (Eng.  trans.);  Budge, 
Babylonian  Life  and  History,  p.  140,  etc.  ;  Vigouroux,  iii.  p.  125).  The 
Assyrian  gives  the  name  as  Aralu. 

2  Thus  also  in  the  Babylonian  and  Greek  conceptions.  Cf.  Sayce,  Hibbert 
Lectures,  p.  364;  Fairbairn,  Studies,  *'The  Belief  in  Immortality,"  pp. 
190,  191. 


236    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Passages  in 
illustration : 
Genesis,  etc. 


Job. 


The  Psalms. 


Hezekiah. 


Not  in  this 
direction  we 
are  to  look  for 
doctrine  of 
immortality : 
embraces  idea 
of  relation  to 
God  and 
resurrection. 


but  would  redeem  him  from  that  state,  and  restore  him  to 
life  in  the  body.^     His  hope  was  for  resurrection. 

To  illustrate  this  state  of  feeling  and  belief,  in  regard  to 
the  state  of  the  separate  existence  of  the  soul,  it  may  be 
well  to  cite  one  or  two  passages  bearing  on  the  subject.  An 
indication  of  a  belief  in  a  future  state  of  the  soul  is  found  in 
an  expression  several  times  met  with  in  Genesis — "  gathered 
to  his  people  "  ^ — where,  in  every  instance,  the  gathering  to 
the  people  (in  "  Sheol ")  is  definitely  distinguished  from  the 
act  of  burial.  Other  evidences  are  afforded  by  the  belief  in 
necromancy,  the  narratives  of  resurrection,  etc.  "What  kind 
of  place  "  Sheol "  was  to  the  popular  imagination  is  well 
represented  in  the  words  of  Job — 

"  I  go  whence  I  shall  not  return, 
Even  to  the  land  of  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death, 
A  land  of  thick  darkness,  as  darkness  itself, 
A  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  without  any  order, 
And  where  light  is  as  darkness."  ^ 

There  was  not  much  cheer  in  looking  forward  to  an  abode 
like  this,  and  it  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  even  good 
men,  in  moments  of  despondency,  when  it  seemed  as  if 
God's  presence  and  favour  were  taken  from  them,  should 
moan  as  David  did — ■ 

*'  Return,  0  Lord,  deliver  my  soul ; 
Save  me  for  Thy  loving  kindness'  sake. 
For  in  death  there  is  no  remembrance  of  Thee, 
In  Sheol  who  shall  give  Thee  thanks  ?  "  •* 

or  with  Hezekiah — 

**  Sheol  cannot  praise  Thee,  death  cannot  celebrate  Thee  : 
They  that  go  down  into  the  pit  cannot  hope  for  Thy  truth. 
The  living,  the  living,  he  shall  praise  Thee  as  I  do  this  day."  ^ 

It  is  not,  therefore,  in  this  direction  that  we  are  to  look 
for  the  positive  and  cheering  side  of  the  Old  Testament  hope 
of  immortality,  but  in  quite  another.  It  is  said  we  have  no 
doctrine  of  immortality  in  the  Old  Testament.     But  I  reply, 

^  See  passages  discussed  below.  ^  Gen.  xxv.  8,  9,  xxxv.  29,  xlix.  29,  33. 

^  Job  X.  21,  22.     Cf.  description  in  Descent  of  Ishtar,  Hibbert  Lectures. 
4  Ps.  vi.  4,  5.  ^  Isa.  xxxviii.  18,  19. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  237 

we  1mm  immortality  at  the  very  commencement — for  man, 

as  he  came  from   the  hands  of   his  Creator   was   made  for  -    _ 

immortal    life.       Man    in    Eden    was    immortal.       He    was 

intended  to  live,  not  to  die.     Then  came  sin,  and  with  it 

death.     Adam  called  his  son  Seth,  and  Seth  called  his  son  immortality 

Enoch,  which  means  "  frail,  mortal  man."     Seth  himself  died,  "'      ^^^' 

his  son  died,  his  son's  son  died,  and  so  the  line  of  death  goes 

on.     Then  comes  an  interruption,  the  intervention,  as  it  were, 

of  a  higher  law,  a  new  inbreaking  of  immortality  into  a  line  New  inbreak- 

of  death.     "Enoch  walked  with  God;  and  he  was  not;  io^il^sofalawoj 

immortality  m 

God  took  him."  ^    Enoch  did  not  die.    Every  other  life  in  that  Enoch. 

record  ends  with  the  statement,  "  and  he  died  " ;  but  Enoch's 

is  given  as  an  exception.     He  did  not  die,  but  God  "  took  " 

him,  i.e.  without  death.     He  simply  "  was  not "  on  earth,  but 

he  "  was  "  with  God  in  another  and  invisible  state  of  exist- 

ence.2     His  case  is  thus  in  some  respects  the  true  type  of  all  This  the  type 

immortality,  for  it  is  an  immortality  of  the  true  personality,  ^/^^^^^^^^ 

•^  ''  ^  ''' immortality : 

in  which  the  body  has  as  real  a  share  as  the  soul.     It  agrees  embraces  the 
with  what  I  have  advanced  in  the  Lecture,  that  it  is  not  an  -^^oie  person- 
immortality  of  the  soul  only  that  the  Bible  speaks  of — that 
is  left  for  the  philosophers — but  an  immortality  of  the  whole 
person,  body  and  soul  together.    Such  is  the  Christian  hope,  and 
such,  as  I  shall  now  try  to  show,  was  the  Hebrew  hope  also. 

It  is  a  current  view  that  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  Examination 
the   dead  was    a    very   late    doctrine    among   the    Hebrews,  ^^^^^.'^^ 
borrowed,  as  many  think,  from  the  Persians  during,  or  sub-  resurrection  a 
sequent  to,  the  Babylonian  exile.     Dr.  Cheyne  sees  in  it  ^-^i'^;^  one  among 

^  '  "^  -^  the  Hebrews: 

effect  of  Zoroastrian  influence  on  the  religion  of  Israel.^     My  derived  from 
opinion,  on  the  contrary,  is  that  it  is  one  of  the  very  oldest  ^^^^^^"^^  ^^<^' 
doctrines  in  the  Bible,  the  form,  in  fact,  in  which  the  hope  Counter- 
of  immortality  was  held,  so  far  as  it  was  held,  from  the  days  ^]^f^\-     , 

J  '  'J     this  doctrine 

of  the  patriarchs  downward.*     In  any  case,  it  was  a  doctrine  runs  all 

through  Old 
^  Gen.  V.  24.  2  So,  later,  Elijah.  Testament. 

•^  Origin  of  Psalter,  Lecture  VIII. ;  and  papers  in  The  Expository  Times  (July 

and  August,  1891)  on  "  Possible  Zoroastrian  Influences  on  the  Religion  of  Israel." 
"*  Thus  also  Hofmann  : — "Nothing  can  be  more  erroneous  than  the  opinion 

that  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  is  a  late  idea,  first  entering  through  human 


238   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Beliefs  of 
Egyptians  ^ 


The  Baby- 
lonians and 
Assyrians  ; 


The  Persians, 
Doubtful  if 
this  doctrine  is 
found  in  older 
jiarts  of  the 
Zend-Avesta. 

Few  and  am- 
biguous refer- 
ences in 
Zoroastrian 
■writings  do 
not  explain  the 
prominence  of 
the  doctrine  in 
the  Old 
Testament. 


of  very  remote  antiquity.  We  find  traces  of  it  in  many 
ancient  religions  outside  the  Hebrew,  an  instructive  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  the  idea  on  which  it  rested.  The  Egyptians 
believed,  e.g.,  that  the  reaniraation  of  the  body  was  essential 
to  perfected  existence  ;  and  this,  according  to  some,  was  the 
thought  that  underlay  the  practice  of  embalming.^  The 
ancient  Babylonians  and  Assyrians  also  had  the  idea  of 
resurrection.  One  of  their  hymns  to  Merodach  celebrates 
him  as  the 

"Merciful  one  among  the  gods, 
Merciful  one,  who  restores  the  dead  to  life. "  ^ 

The  belief  was  probably  also  held  by  the  Persians,  though  it 
it  is  still  a  disputed  question  whether  it  is  found  in  the  older 
portions  of  the  Zend-Avesta.  That  question  is  not  so  easily 
settled  as  Dr.  Cheyne  thinks  ;  ^  but  in  any  case  the  older 
references  are  few  and  ambiguous,  and  are  totally  inadequate 
to  explain  the  remarkable  prominence  which  this  doctrine 
assumed  in  the  Old  Testament.*     The  Bible  has  a  coherent 

reflection,  the  earliest  traces  of  which,  if  not  first  given  by  the  Parsees  to  the 
Jews,  are  to  be  met  with  in  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel." — Schriftheweis,  iii.  p.  461. 
Cf.  on  this  theory  of  Parsic  influence,  Pusey's  Daniel,  pp.  512-517. 

^  "There  is  a  chapter,  with  a  vignette,  representing  the  soul  uniting  itself 
to  the  body,  and  the  text  promises  that  they  shall  never  again  be  separated." — 
Renouf,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  188.  "They  believed,"  says  Budge,  "that  the 
soul  would  revisit  the  body  after  a  number  of  years,  and  therefore  it  was 
absolutely  necessary  that  the  body  should  be  preserved,  if  its  owner  wished  to 
live  for  ever  with  the  gods." — Dwellers  on  the  Nile,  p.  156. 

-  Cf.  Boscawen,  British  Museum  Lecture,  pp.  23,  24  ;  Sayce,  pp.  98-100 ; 
Cheyne,  Origin  of  Psalter,  p,  392.  There  is  no  evidence,  however,  of  a  general 
hope  of  resurrection. 

^  Cf.  Pusey,  pp.  512-517  ;  and  Cheyne's  own  citations  from  recent  scholars, 
Origin  of  Psalter,  pp.  425,  451.  M.  Montet  formerly  held  that  the  germs  of 
the  doctrine  came  from  Zoroastrianism,  but  "in  1890,  in  deference,  it  would 
seem,  to  M.  de  Harlez,  and  in  opposition  not  less  to  Spiegel  than  to  Gelder,  he 
pronounces  the  antiquity  of  the  resurrection  doctrine  in  Zoroastrianism  as  yet 
unproven." — Cheyne,  p.  451.     Cf.  Schultz,  Alttest.  Theol.  p.  762. 

*  Anyone  can  satisfy  himself  on  this  head  by  consulting  the  passages  for 
himself  in  the  Zend-Avesta,  in  Sacred  Books  of  the  East.  The  indices  to  the 
three  volumes  give  only  one  reference  to  the  subject,  and  that  to  one  of  a  few 
undated  "Miscellaneous  Fragments  "  at  the  end.  Professor  Cheyne  himself  can 
say  no  more  than  that  "Mills  even  thinks  that  there  is  a  trace  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Kcsurrection  in  the  Gathas.  ...  He  (Zoroaster)  may  have  had  a  vague 
conception  of  the  revival  of  bodies,  but  not  a  theory." — Origin  of  Psalter, 
p.  438. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  239 

and  consistent  doctrine  of  its  own  upon  the  subject,  and  is 
not  dependent  on  doubtful  allusions  in  Zoroastrian  texts  for 
its  clear  and  bold  statements  of  the  final  swallowing  up  of 
death  in  victory.  Let  me  briefly  review  some  of  the  lines  of 
evidence. 

I  have  referred  already  to  the  case  of  Enoch  in  the  begin-  Revieiv  of 
ninff  of   the  history,  as  illustrative  of  the  Biblical  idea  of  ''"'^'!''''  f  ^ 

^  ''  earlier  books. 

immortality.  As  respects  the  patriarchs,  the  references  to 
their  beliefs  and  hopes  are  necessarily  few  and  inferential, — 
a  fact  which  speaks  strongly  for  the  early  date  and  genuine- 
ness of  the  tradition.  The  New  Testament  signalises  them  as 
men  of  "  faith,"  and  certainly  their  conduct  is  that  of  men 
who,  accounting  themselves  "  strangers  and  pilgrims  "  on  the 
earth,  look  for  a  future  fulfilment  of  the  promises  as  of 
something  in  which  they  have  a  personal  interest.^  Not 
improbably  it  was  some  hope  of  resurrection  which  inspired 
(as  with  the  Egyptians)  their  great  care  for  their  dead,  and 
prompted  the  injunctions  left  by  Jacob  and  Joseph  regarding 
the  interment  of  their  "  bones  "  in  the  land  of  promise.^  It  is 
significant  that  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  connects  Abraham's  Abraham. 
sacrifice  of  Isaac  with  his  faith  in  a  resurrection.  "  By  faith 
Abraham,  being  tried,  offered  up  Isaac  .  .  .  accounting  that 
God  is  able  to  raise  up,  even  from  the  dead ;  from  whence 
also  he  did  in  a  parable  receive  him  back."^  The  Eabbis 
drew  a  curious  inference  from  God's  word  to  Abraham,  "  I 
will  give  to  thee,  and  to  thy  seed  after  thee,  the  land  wherein 
thou  art  a  stranger."  *  "  But  it  appears,"  they  argued,  "  that 
Abraham  and  the  other  patriarchs  did  not  possess  that  land ; 
therefore  it  is  of  necessity  that  they  should  be  raised  up  to 
enjoy  the  good  promises,  else  the  promises  of  God  should  be 
vain  and  false.  So  that  here  we  have  a  proof,  not  only 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  but  also  of  the  foundation 

of  the  law — namely,   the   resurrection   of    the  dead."  ^       If 

\ 

1  Heb.  xi.  13.  2  Qen.  1.  5,  25  ;  Ex.  xiii.  19  ;  Heb.  xi.  22. 

•^  Heb.  xi.  17-19  ;  cf.  Hofmann,  pp.  461-462. 

•*  Gen.  xvii.  8.  ^  Quoted  in  Fairbairn,  i.  p.  353. 


Moses—'^Iajn 
the  God"  etc. 


240   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

this  be  thought  fanciful,  I  would  refer  to  the  teaching  of 
a  greater  than    the   Eabbis.       Reasoning   with    the   Saddu- 

The  words  to  cecs,  Jesus  quotcs  that  saying  of  God  to  Moses,  "  I  am 
the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the 
God  of  Jacob,"  adding,  "  God  is  not  the  God  of  the 
dead,  but  of  the  living."  ^  The  point  to  be  observed  is 
that  Jesus  quotes  this  passage,  not  simply  in  proof  of 
the  continued  subsistence  of  the  patriarchs  in  some  state 
of  being,  but  in  proof  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead. 
And  how  does  it  prove  that  ?  Only  on  the  ground,  which 
Jesus  assumes,  that  the  relation  of  the  believer  to  God 
carries  with  it  a  whole  immortality,  and  this,  as  we  have 
seen,  implies  life  in  the  body.  If  God  is  the  God  of 
Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob,  this  covenant  relation  pledges 
to  these  patriarchs  not  only  continuance  of  existence,  but 
Eedemption  from  the  power  of  death,  i.e.  resurrection. 

It  is,  however,  when  we  come  to  the  later  books — the 
Book  of  Job,  the  Psalms,  the  Prophets — that  we  get  clearer 
light  on  the  form  which  the  hope  of  immortality  assumed  in 
the  minds  of  Old  Testament  believers ;  and  it  may  be 
affirmed  with  considerable  confidence  that  this  light  is  all,  or 
nearly  all,  in  favour  of  the  identification  of  this  hope  with 
the  hope  of  resurrection.  I  take  first  the  Book  of  Job, 
because,  whenever  written,  it  relates  to  patriarchal  times,  or 
at  least  moves  in  patriarchal  conditions.  The  first  rem^ark- 
able  passage  in  this  book  is  in  chapter  xiv.  This  chapter 
raises  the  very  question  we  are  now  dealing  with,  and  it  is 
noteworthy  that  the  form  in  which  it  does  so  is  the  possibility 

anticipation  0/ ^^   bodily  revival.     First,  Job   enumerates    the    appearances 

resurrection.  ,     t    •  .      /  h. 

which  seem  hostile  to  mans  livmg  again  (vers.  7-12).  Then 
faith,  rising  in  her  very  extremity,  reasserts  herself  against 
doubt  and  fear — 

"  Oh  that  Thou  wouldest  hide  me  in  Sheol, 
That  Thou  wouldest  keep  me  secret,  till  Thy  wrath  be  past, 
That  Thou  wouldest  appoint  me  a  set  time,  and  remember  me  ! 


The  later 
books :  Joby 
Psalms, 
Prophets. 


Book  of  Job 
pictU7'e  of 
patriarchal 
conditions. 


/ob  xiv.  .* 


1  Matt.  xxii.  23. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OE IMMORTALITY.  241 

If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ? 

All  the  days  of  my  warfare  would  I  wait, 

Till  my  release  should  come. 

Thou  shouldest  call,  and  I  would  answer  Thee, 

Thou  wouldest  have  a  desire  to  the  work  of  Thy  hands."  ^ 

There  seems  no  reasonable  room  for  question  that  what  is  Dr.  DavU- 
before  Job's  mind  here  is  the  thought  of  resurrection.  Dr.  -^^'^'-^  ^^'^^^ 
A.  B.  Davidson  explains :  "  On  this  side  death  he  has  no 
hope  of  a  return  to  God's  favour.  Hence,  contemplating  that 
he  shall  die  under  God's  anger,  his  thought  is  that  he  might 
remain  in  Sheol  till  God's  wrath  be  past,  for  He  keepeth  not 
His  anger  for  ever ;  that  God  would  appoint  him  a  period  to 
remain  in  death,  and  then  remember  him  with  returning 
mercy,  and  call  him  back  again  to  His  fellowship.  But  to 
his  mind  this  involves  a  complete  return  to  life  again  of  the 
whole  man  (ver.  14),  for  in  death  there  is  no  fellowship  with 
God  (Ps.  vi.  5).  Thus  his  solution,  though  it  appears  to  his 
mind  only  as  a  momentary  gleam  of  light,  is  broader  than 
that  of  the  Psalmist,  and  corresponds  to  that  made  known  in 
subsequent  Revelation."  ^ 

The   second    passage  in    Job  is    the    well-known    one    in /^^xix.  25-27: 
chapter  xix.,  translated  in  the  Eevised  Version  thus —  resurrection 

again  implied. 
"But  I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth. 
And  that  He  shall  stand  up  at  the  last  upon  the  earth  [Heb.  dufit\ 
And  after  my  skin  hath  been  thus  destroyed, 
Yet  from  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God  : 
Whom  I  shall  see  for  myself, 
And  mine  eyes  shall  behold,  and  not  another."^ 

I  do  not  enter  into  the  many  difficulties  of  this  passage, 
but  refer  only  to  the  crucial  line,  "  Yet  from  my  flesh  shall  I 
see  God."     The  margin  gives  as  another  rendering,  "without  ^'  in''  or 
my  flesh,"  but  this  is  arrived  at  only  as  an  interpretation  ''^^J'''^"^ 

1  Job  xiv.  13-15  (R. v.).  The  margin  translates  as  in  A.V.,  '*Thou  shalt 
call,"  etc.  As  remarked,  the  form  in  which  the  question  is  put  in  this  passage 
is  as  significant  as  the  answer  to  it.  It  implies  that  revived  existence  in  the 
body  is  the  only  form  in  which  the  patriarch  contemplated  immortality.  Life 
and  even  sensation  in  Sheol  are  presupposed  in  ver.  22. 

2  Com.  on  Job,  in  loc.  (Cambridge  Series).  I  can  scarcely  agree  that  Job's 
solution  is  broader  than  that  of  the  psalmist's.     See  below. 

3  Job  xix.  25-27. 

16 


242    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

of  the  word  "  from,"  which  is  literally  the  one  used.  The 
natural  meaning  would  therefore  seem  to  be,  "  Yet  from  (or 
out  of)  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God,"  which  implies  that  he  will 
be  clothed  with  flesh.^  Dr.  Davidson  allows  the  admissibility 
of  this  rendering,  and  says :  "  If  therefore  we  understand  the 
words  '  from  my  flesh '  in  the  sense  of  in  my  flesh,  we  must 
suppose  that  Job  anticipated  being  clothed  in  a  new  body 
after  death.  Something  may  be  said  for  this  view.  Un- 
doubtedly, in  chapter  xiv.  13  sec^.,  Job  clearly  conceived  the 
idea  of  being  delivered  from  Sheol  and  living  again,  and 
fervently  prayed  that  such  a  thing  might  be.  And  what  he 
there  ventured  to  long  for,  he  might  here  speak  of  as  a  thing 
of  which  he  was  assured.  No  violence  would  be  done  to 
the  line  of  thought  in  the  book  by  this  supposition."  Yet 
he  thinks  "  it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  great  thought  of 
the  resurrection  of  the  body  could  be  referred  to  in  a  way 
so  brief,"  and  so  prefers  the  rendering  "  without."  ^  I  think, 
however,  this  is  hardly  a  sufficient  reason  to  outweigh  the 
tremendously  strong  fact  that  we  have  already  this  thought 
of  resurrection  conceded  in  chapter  xiv.,  and,  further,  that  the 
thought  of  living  again  in  the  body  seemed  the  only  way  in 
which  Job  there  could  conceive  the  idea  of  immortahty.  If 
that  is  so,  it  may  explain  why  more  stress  is  not  laid  upon 
resurrection  here.  The  hope  which  absorbs  all  Job's  thought 
is  that  of  "  seeing  God,"  and  the  fact  that,  if  he  does  so  at  all, 
he  must  do  it  "  in  "  or  "  from  "  the  flesh,  is  taken  for  granted 
as  a  thing  of  course.^ 
The  Psalms :  The  question  of  the  testimony  of  the  Psalms  is  greatly 
Dr,  Cieynes  ^y^-^\]^Q^  y^j  \\^q  large  concessions  which  writers  like  Dr. 
Cheyne  are  now  ready  to  make,  in  the  belief  that  by 
admitting  references  to  resurrection  doctrine  they  prepare  the 
The  passages    way  for  the  proof  of  "  Zoroastrian  influences."     The  passages, 

that  teach 

immortality  ^  Cf.  Pusey,  p.  508,  and  Vigouroux,  iii.  pp.  172-180. 

imply  resur-  ^  Commentary  on  Job,  Appendix  on  chap.  xix.  23-27,  p.  292. 

rection,  ^  Dr.  Davidson's  remark,  "On  Old  Testament  ground,  and  in  the  situation 

of  Job,  such  a  matter-of-course  kind  of  reference  is  almost  inconceivable"  (p. 

292),  involves  the  very  point  at  issue. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  243     

however,  are  happily  of  an  order  that  speak  for  themselves, 
and    need   no   forcing  to  yield   us  their  meaning.     A   con- 
spicuous example  is  Ps.  xvi.  8-11,  cited  in  the  New  Testa- /v.  xvi.  8-ir. 
ment  as  a  prophecy  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ — 

"  I  have  set  the  Lord  always  before  me  : 
Because  He  is  at  my  right  hand,  I  shall  not  be  moved. 
Therefore  my  heart  is  glad,  and  my  glory  rejoiceth  ; 
My  flesh  also  shall  dwell  in  safety  (or  confidently)^ 
For  Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  to  Sheol ; 
Neither  wilt  Thou  suffer  Thine  Holy  One  to  see  corruption 

(or  the  pit). 
Thou  wilt  show  me  the  path  of  life  : 
In  Thy  presence  is  fulness  of  joy  ; 
In  Thy  right  hand  there  are  pleasures  for  evermore." ^ 

Another  passage  is  in  Psalm  xvii.  15,  where,  after  describ- /v.  xvii.  15. 
ing    the    apparent    prosperity   of    the    wicked,  the   Psalmist 
says — 

"As  for  me,  I  shall  behold  Thy  face  in  righteousness  : 
I  shall  be  satisfied,  when  I  awake,  with  Thy  likeness." 

The  "  awakening "  here,  as  Delitzsch  says,  can  only  be  that 

from   the   sleep   of  death.^     Yet   more   distinct   is   Ps.  xlix.  Ps.  xiix.  14, 

14,  15—  '5. 

"They  (the  wicked)  are  appointed  as  a  fleck  for  Slaeol; 
Death  shall  be  their  shepherd  : 

And  the  upright  shall  have  dominion  over  them  in  the  morning  ; 
And  their  beauty  shall  be  for  Sheol  to  consume,  that  there  be  no 

habitation  for  it. 
But  God  will  redeem  my  soul  from  the  power  (hand)  of  Sheol : 
For  He  shall  receive  me." 

There  is  here  again,  it  is  believed,  clear  reference  to  the 
"  morning "  of  the  resurrection.      The  passage  is   the   more 
significant  that  in  the  last  words,  as  well  as  in  Ps.  Ixxiii.  24, 
there  is  direct   allusion  to  the  case  of  Enoch.     "  *  God,'  says  References  to 
the  Psalmist,  '  shall  redeem  my  soul  from  the  hand  of  Hades,  ^''''^'  '^'''^'' 

1  See  Acts  ii.  24-31.  Cf.  Delitzsch,  in  loc. ;  and  Cheyne,  Origin  of  the 
Psalter,  p.  431. 

'^  Com.,  in  loc.  Thus  also  Pusey,  Perowne,  Cheyne,  Hofmann,  etc.  "The 
awakening,"  says  Cheyne,  "probably  means  the  i)assing  of  the  soul  into  a 
resurrection  body." — Orhjin  of  Psalter,  p.  407. 


244   THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

for  He  shall  take  me/  as  He  took  Enoch,  and  as  He  took 
Fs.  Ixxiii.  24.  Elijah,  to  Hhnself."^     Ps.  Ixxiii.  24  reads  thus — 

**  Nevertheless  I  am  continually  with  Thee  : 
Thou  hast  holden  my  right  hand. 
Thou  shalt  guide  me  with  Thy  counsel, 
And  afterward  receive  me  to  glory. 
Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  Thee  ? 

And  there  is  none  on  the  earth  that  I  desire  beside  Thee. 
My  flesh  and  my  heart  faileth  : 
But  God  is  the  strength  of  my  heart  and  my  portion  for  ever. " 

These,  and  a  few  others,  are  the  passages  usually  cited  in 

favour  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  in  the  Book  of  Psalms, 

and  it  will  be  seen  that  in  all  of  them  this  hope  is  clothed  in 

a  form  which  implies  a  resurrection.^ 

The  prophetic        I  need  not  delay  on  the  passages  in  the  prophetic  books. 


the  idea  ^^^  j^^^.^  -^^  -g  ^g^ja^jiy  rrranted  that  the  idea  of  resurrection  is 

of  resurrection  ''    ^ 

familiar.  familiar.  Not  only  is  the  restoration  of  the  Jewish  people 
frequently  presented  under  this  figure,  but  a  time  is  coming 
when,  for  the  Church  as  a  whole,  including  the  individuals 
in  it,  death  shall  be  swallowed  up  in  victory.     We  have  a 

Hosea  vi.  2,     passage    already    in    Hosea,  which    is    beyond    suspicion    of 

xiu.  14.  Zoroastrian  influence — 

' '  After  two  days  will  He  revive  us : 
On  the  third  day,  He  will  raise  us  up,  and  we  shall  live  before  Him." 


And  again^ 


I  will  ransom  them  from  the  power  of  Sheol 
I  will  redeem  them  from  death  : 


^  Perowne,  in  loc.  Thus  also  Pusey,  Delitzsch,  Cheyne,  etc.  "The  'dawn,'" 
says  Cheyne,  "is  that  of  the  resurrection  day." — Expositoi-y  Times,  ii.  p.  249  ; 
cf.  Origin  of  Psalter,  pp.  382,  406,  407.  Delitzsch,  in  note  on  Ps.  xvi.  8-11, 
says  :  "Nor  is  the  awakening  in  xlix:.  15  some  morning  or  other  that  will  very 
soon  follow  upon  the  night,  but  the  final  morning,  which  brings  deliverance 
to  the  upright,  and  enables  them  to  obtain  dominion." 

2  Or  if  not  resurrection,  then  immortality  in  the  body  without  tasting  of 
death,  as  Enoch.  But  this  is  a  hope  the  Old  Testament  believer  could  hardly 
have  cherished  for  himself.  The  view  of  delivei-ance  from  death  seems  there- 
fore the  more  probable  in  Ps.  xlix.  15,  etc.  A  very  different  view  is  taken  by 
Schultz  in  his  Alttestamentliche  Theologie,  pp.  753-758.  Schult^  not  only  sees 
no  proof  of  the  resurrection  in  the  passages  we  have  quoted,  but  will  not  even 
allow  that  they  have  any  reference  to  a  future  life.  So  extreme  a  view  surely 
refutes  itself.  It  is  at  least  certain  that  if  these  passages  teach  a  future  life,  it 
is  a  life  in  connection  with  the  body. 


OLD  TESTAMENT  DOCTRINE  OF  IMMORTALITY.  245    _____ 

0  death,  where  are  thy  plagues  ? 

0  grave,  where  is  thy  destruction  ? "  ^ 

The  climax  of  this  class  of  passages  is  reached  in  Isa.  xxv.  Isa.  xxv.  6-8, 
^-^,  xxvi.   19.     Cf.  also  Ezek.  xxxvii.   1-10,  the  vision  of ''^^^- '9,  ^^^. 
the  dry  bones.^ 

The  last  Old  Testament  passage  I  will  quote  is  an  undis- 
puted one,  and  has  the  special  feature  of  interest  that  in  it 
for  the  first  time  mention  is  made  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
wicked  as  well  as  of  the  just  It  is  that  in  Dan.  xii.  2 —  Dan.  xii.  2. 
"  And  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the  earth  shall 
awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt."     This  needs  no  comment. 

From  the  whole  survey  I  think  it  will  be  evident  that  I  After  all  only 
was  entitled  to  say  that  from  the  first  the  manner  in  which '^ ^f^^"?"'"'^ 

on  believer  s 

the   hope   of    immortality  was   conceived    by  holy    men    in  relation  to  God, 
Israel  was  that  of  a  resurrection.     Yet,  when  all  is  said,  we 
cannot  but  feel  that  it  was  but  a  Iwpe — not  resting  on  express 
Eevelation,  but  springing  out  of  the  consciousness  of  the  in- 
dissoluble relation  between  God  and  the  believing  soul,  and 
the  conviction  that  God's  Redemption  will  be  a  complete  one. 
Life  and  immortality  were  not  yet  brought  to  light  as  they 
are  now  by  Christ  in  His  Gospel.^    The  matter  is  unexception- 
ably  stated  by  Dr.  A.   B.  Davidson  in  the  following  words, 
with  which  I  conclude :  "  The  human  spirit  is  conscious  of  Dr.  Davidson 
fellowship  with  God  ;  and  this  fellowship,  from  the  nature  of  ^''^^^^^• 
God,  is  a  thing  imperishable,  and,  in  spite  of  obscurations,  it 
must    yet    be    fully    manifested    by    God.      This    principle, 

1  Hos.  vi.  2,  xiii.  14.     Cf.  Cheyne,  p.  383. 

^  On  the  passages  in  Isaiah,  Cheyne  remarks:  "Instead  of  swallowing  up, 
Sheol  in  the  Messianic  period  shall  itself  be  swallowed  up.  And  this  prospect 
concerns  not  merely  the  Church -nation,  but  all  of  its  believing  members,  and 
indeed  all,  whether  Jews  or  not,  who  submit  to  the  true  King,  Jehovah." — 
Origin  of  Psalter,  p.  402.  Cf.  Expository  Times,  ii.  p.  226.  In  Ezekiel,  the 
subject  is  national  resurrection,  but  "that  the  power  of  God  can,  against  all 
liuman  thought  and  hope,  reanimate  the  dead,  is  the  general  idea  of  the 
passage,  from  which  consequently  the  hope  of  a  literal  resurrection  of  the  dead 
may  naturally  be  inferred." — Oehler,  Theology  of  Old  TestaTnent,  ii.  p.  395 
(Eug.  trans.).     Oehler  does  more  justice  to  these  passages  than  Schultz.^ 

-  1  Tim.  i.  10. 


246    THE  POSTULATE  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

grasped  with  convulsive  earnestness  in  the  prospect  of  death, 
became  the  Hebrew  doctrine  of  immortality.  This  doctrine 
was  but  the  necessary  corollary  of  religion.  In  this  life  the 
true  relations  of  men  to  God  were  felt  to  be  realised ;  and 
the  Hebrew  faith  of  immortality — never  a  belief  in  the  mere 
existence  of  the  soul  after  death,  for  the  lowest  superstition 
assumed  this — was-  a  faith  that  the  dark  and  mysterious 
event  of  death  would  not  interrupt  the  life  of  the  person 
with  God,  enjoyed  in  this  world.  .  .  .  The  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality in  the  book  (of  Job)  is  the  same  as  that  of  other  parts 
of  the  Old  Testament.  Immortality  is  the  corollary  of 
reliorion.  If  there  be  religion — that  is,  if  God  be — there  is 
immortality,  not  of  the  soul,  but  of  the  whole  personal  being 
of  man  (Ps.  xvi.  9).  This  teaching  of  the  whole  Old  Testa- 
ment is  expressed  by  our  Lord  with  a  surprising  incisiveness 
in  two  sentences — '  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham.  God  is 
not  the  God  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living!  "  ^ 

^  Commentary  on  Job,  Appendix,  pp.  293-295. 


LECTURE  VI. 


Efje  Central  Assertion  of  tlje  ffl:i)rtsttan  Uieto— tlje 
Incarnation  of  ffioU  in  fiTljrfet^ 


"With  historical  science,  the  life  of  Jesus  takes  its  place  in  the 
great  stream  of  the  world's  history ;  He  is  a  human  individual,  who 
became  what  He  was,  and  was  to  be,  through  the  living  action  of  ideas 
and  the  circumstances  of  His  time,  and  He,  as  a  mighty  storm-wave 
which  has  arisen  through  the  conflict  of  forces,  is  destined  to  sink  once 
more  into  the  smooth  sea  in  the  restless  whirl  of  earthly  things,  quietly 
subsiding  from  the  general  life  of  humanity,  in  order  to  make  room  for 
new  and  stronger  throes  and  creations.  Here,  in  the  Church,  He  is 
the  rock  which  rules  over  the  flood,  instead  of  being  moved  by  it.  .  .  . 
He,  the  pillar,  the  Son  of  God,  will  survey  humanity,  however  far  and 
wide  it  may  extend,  permitting  it  only  to  hold  fast  by  Him,  or  to 
wreck  itself  against  Him." — Keim. 

*'  But  Thee,  but  Thee,  0  Sovereign  Seer  of  time. 
But  Thee,  0  poet's  Poet,  wisdom's  tongue. 
But  Thee,  0  man's  best  Man,  0  love's  best  Love, 
0  perfect  life  in  perfect  labour  writ, 
0  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King,  or  Priest,— 
What  if  ov  yet,  wliat  mole,  what  flaw,  what  lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect, 
What  rumour,  tattled  by  an  enemy, 
Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace 
Even  in  torture's  grasp,  or  sleep's,  or  death's, — 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  Tliee, 
Jesus,  good  Paragon,  thou  crystal  Christ." 

Sidney  Lanier. 


LECTUKE     YL 

THE  CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  THE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW THE 

INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST. 

In   the  second  Lecture  I  conducted  an  historical  argument  Co77ipietion  of 
intended  to  show  that  there  is  really  no  intermediate  position  ^^^'"f^^ 

■*■  second 

in  which  the  mind  can  logically  rest  between  the  admission  Lectzire. 
of  a  truly  Divine  Christ  and  a  purely  humanitarian  view. 
This  argument  I  have  now  to  complete,  by  showing  that  the 
necessity  which  history  declares  to  exist  arises  from  the 
actual  state  of  the  facts  in  the  Christian  Eevelation.  We 
have  seen  what  the  alternative  is,  and  we  have  now  to  ask 
why  it  is  so. 

Why  is  it  that  we  cannot  rest  in' a  conception  of  Christ  ^^\^hy  cannot 
simply  a  prophet  of  a  higher  order  ?  or  as  a  God-filled  man  ^^  ^^-^^  "^  ^ 

^  J        ^     ^  »  i^^^^^  concep- 

in  whom  the  Divine  dwelt  as  it  dwells  in  no  other?  or  ^'&  tion  of  Christ? 
the  central  Personage  of  our  race,  at  once  ideal  man  and  the 
Eevelation  to  us  of  the  absolute  principle  of  religion  ?  These 
views  seem  plausible ;  they  are  accepted  by  many ;  they 
seem  at  first  sight  to  bring  Christ  nearer  to  us  than  on  the 
supposition  of  His  true  God-manhood ;  why  cannot  the  mind 
of  the  Church  rest  in  them  ?  Must  not  the  explanation  be 
that,  taking  into  account  the  sum-total  of  the  facts  of 
Christianity,  they  refuse  to  square  with  any  subordinate 
view,  but  compel  us  to  press  up  to  the  higher  conception  ?  / 
This  is  what  I  affirm,  and  I  propose  in  this  Lecture  to  test 
the  question  by  an  examination  of  the  facts  themselves. 

There  is,  I  know,  in  some  minds,  an  insuperable  objection, 
a  p'iori,  to  the  acceptance  of  the  fact  of   the  Incarnation, 


250    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


A  priori 
objection  to  the 
Incarnation 
based  on 
Christ's 
lowliness. 


Comparison 

with  the 

assertions  of 

liberal 

theologians 

and 

evolutionists. 


arising  from  the  lowliness  of  Christ's  earthly  origin  and 
condition.  Can  we  believe,  it  is  said,  that  in  this  historical 
individual,  Jesus  of  Nazareth — this  son  of  a  carpenter — God 
actually  became  incarnate ;  that  in  this  humble  man,  so  poor 
in  all  His  earthly  surroundings,  there  literally  dwelt  the 
fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily  ?  Is  the  thought  not  on  the 
face  of  it  incredible  ?  The  appeal  here  is  to  our  powers  of 
imagination — of  conceiving — to  our  sense  of  the  likelihood 
or  unlikelihood  of  things ;  and  to  enable  us  to  judge  fairly  of 
that  appeal,  and  of  its  nature  as  an  objection  to  the  In- 
carnation, a  great  many  things  would  have  to  be  taken  into 
account,  both  before  and  after. 

I  would  only  say  that  as  regards  a  certain  class  who  make 
that  objection  —  the  higher  class  of  liberal  theologians 
especially — the  question  seems  only  one  of  degree.  Tf 
Christ  is,  in  any  case,  as  most  of  them  affirm,  the  central, 
typical,  religiously  greatest  individual  of  the  race ;  if  the 
principle  of  the  absolute  religion  is  manifested  in  Him,  as 
Pfleiderer  allows ;  ^  if  He  is  the  ideally-perfect  man  in  whom 
the  God-consciousness  finds  its  fullest  expression,  as  Schleier- 
macher  declares  f  if  He  is  alone  the  sinless  Personality  of  the 
race,  as  even  Lipsius  will  grant,^ — these  are  already  remarkable 
claims,  and  as  compared  with  His  lowly  appearance  and  mean 
historical  environment  create  almost  as  great  a  feeling  of 
strangeness  as  on  the  supposition  of  His  true  Divinity.  Or 
let  us  suppose  that  the  objection  comes  from  the  evolutionist. 
Then  contrast  the  strangeness  he  speaks  of  with  that  of  his 
own  views.  His  objection  is,  that  he  cannot  believe  that  in 
this  lowly  Man  of  Nazareth  there  should  reside  all  the 
potentialities  of  Divinity.  But  what  does  he  ask  us  to 
believe  ?  He  goes  back  to  the  primitive  state  of  things,  and 
there,  in  that  little  speck  of  jelly  at  the  first  dawn  of  life, — 
in  that  humble  drop  of  protoplasmic  matter  buried  in  some 
oozy  slime, — he  bids  us  believe  that  there  lies  wrapped  up, 


^  Cf.  his  Grundriss,  sees.  128,  129. 
^  Der  chrisll.  Qlauhe,  ii.  sees.  93,  94. 


'  Dogmatik,  sec.  651. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      251 ^ 

only  waiting  for  development,  the  promise  and  potency  of  the 
whole  subsequent  evolution  of  life.  In  that  first  germ-cell 
there  lies  enfolded — latent — not  only  the  whole  wealth  of 
vegetable  existence,  not  only  the  long  procession  of  future 
races  and  species  of  lower  and  higher  animals,  with  their 
bodily  powers  and  mental  instincts,  but,  in  addition,  the 
later  possibilities  of  humanity ;  all  that  has  now  come  to 
light  in  human  development — the  wealth  of  genius,  the  riches 
of  civilisation,  the  powers  of  intellect,  imagination,  and  heart, 
the  treasures  of  human  love  and  goodness,  of  poetry  and 
art — the  genius  of  Dante,  of  Shakespeare,  of  Milton — the 
spiritual  greatness  and  holiness  of  Christ  Himself; — all,  in  a 
word,  that  has  ever  come  out  of  man  is  supposed  by  the 
evolutionist  to  have  been  potentially  present  from  the  first 
in  that  little  primitive  speck  of  protoplasm  !  ^  I  confess  that, 
putting  his  assertion  alongside  the  Christian  one,  I  do  not 
feel  that  there  is  much  to  choose  between  them  in  point  of 
strangeness.  But  evolution,  he  would  tell  us,  is  not  deprived 
of  its  truth  by  the  strangeness  at  first  sight  of  its  assertion — 
neither  is  the  Christian  view.  The  question  is  not  one  to  be 
settled  a  'priori,  but  to  be  brought  to  the  test  of  facts. 

T.    Godet  has  said,  "  Christianity  is   entirely  based  upon  /.  Testimony 
Christ's  consciousness  of   Himself,  and  it  is   the  heroism  of '^-\  ^f,. 

'  apostolic  age 

faith   to  rest  upon   the  extraordinary  testimony  which   this  as  throwing 
Being  gave  to  Himself."  2     This  must  be  so,  for  the  reason  ^5^^. ''J' 

^  Christ  s  own 

which  Christ  Himself  gives,  that  He  alone  has  the  knowledge  claims. 
which   qualifies   Him    to   give   a   true   estimate   of   Himself. 
"  For  T  know,"  He  said  to  the  Jews,  "  whence  I  came,  and 
whither  I  go ;  but  ye  know  not  whence  I  came,  or  whither  I 

^  Tyndall  carries  back  this  promise  and  potency  to  tlie  original  fire-mist. 
"For  what  are  the  core  and  essence  of  this  hypothesis?  Strip  it  naked,  and 
you  stand  face  to  face  with  the  notion  that  not  alone  the  more  ignoble  forms  of 
aoimalcular  or  animal  life,  not  alone  the  nobler  forms  of  the  horse  and  lion,  not 
alone  the  exquisite  and  wonderful  mechanism  of  the  human  body,  but  that  the 
human  mind  itself— emotion,  intellect,  will,  and  all  their  phenomena— were 
once  latent  in  a  fiery  cloud." — Fragments,  ii.  p.  132. 

2  Commentary  on  John,  ii.  p.  315  (Eng.  trans.). 


252    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Prerogatives 
which  the 
early  church 
assigned  to 
Christ. 


go."  ^  I  propose,  however,  to  begin  at  a  point  further  down 
— that  to  which  our  first  written  documents  belong — and 
to  ask,  What  was  the  view  of  Christ's  Person  held  in  the 
apostolic  age  ?  The  testimony  of  that  age  is  clearly  one  of 
great  importance,  as  throwing  light  on  Christ's  own  claims. 
When  men  say,  Buddha  also  was  raised  to  the  rank  of 
Divinity  by  his  followers,  though  he  himself  made  no  such 
claim,  I  answer  that  the  cases  are  not  parallel.  It  was  only 
long  centuries  after  his  death,  and  within  limited  circles,  that 
Buddha  was  regarded  as  Divine ;  b-ut  one  short  step  takes  us 
from  the  days  when  Christ  Himself  liv^d  and  taught  on  earth 
into  the  midst  of  a  Church,  founded  by  His  apostles,  which  in 
all  its  branches  worshipped  and  adored  Him  as  the  veritable 
Son  of  God  made  manifest  on  earth  f<Dr  our  salvation.  If  it 
can  be  shown  that  in  tl>e  apostolic  Church  a  practically 
consentient  view  existed  of  Christ's  Person,  this,  of  itself,  is  a 
strong  reason  for  beli-eving  that  it  rested  on  claims  made  by 
Christ  Himself,  and  rose  naturally  out  of  the  facts  of  His 
historical  self-manifestation.^ 

I  begin  with  the  broad  fact  which  none  can  dispute,  that, 
in  the  first  age  of  Christianity,  Christ  was  universally  regarded 
as  one  who  had  risen  from  the  dead,  who  had  ascended  on 
high  to  the  right  hand  of  God,  who  exercised  there  a  goverument 
of  the  world,  who  was  to  return  again  to  judge  the  quick  and 
dead,  and  who,  on  these  grounds,  was  the  object  of  worship  and 
prayer  in  all  the  churches.^  This  view  of  Christ  is  found  in 
every  book  of  the  New  Testament, — in  the  Acts,  in  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  in  Hebrews,  in  Peter,  in  the  Book  of  Eevelation,  in 
the  Epistles  of  John,  and  James,  and  Jude, — and  is  so 
generally  acknowledged  to  be  there,  that  I  do  not  need  to  delay 
in  quoting  special  texts.  But  even  so  much  as  this  cannot 
be    admitted,   without    implying    that   in    the   faith    of    the 


1  John  viii.  14. 

^  A  good  summary  of  the  apostolic  evidence  will  be  seen  in  Dr.  Whitelaw's 
How  is  the  Divinity  of  Jesus  depicted  in  the  Gospels  and  Epistles  ? 

^  Cf.  Weiss's  Bih.  Theol.  of  the  Neiv  Testament,  pp.  177-181  (Eng.  trans.); 
Harnack's  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  pp.  66-68. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      253     _ 

early  Church,  Christ   was  no  mere  man,  but  a  supernatural 
Personage,  i.e.  that  the  Ebionitic  view  was  not  the  primitive 
one.     Think  only  of  what  is  implied  in  this  one  claim  to  be  The  claim  to 
the    Judge    of    the   world — the    arbiter    of    the    everlasting -^"^^"^  ^'^^ 

.  .  world. 

destinies  of  mankind.^  There  is  no  point  on  which  the  writers 
of  the  New  Testament  are  more  absolutely  unanimous  than 
this — that  Christ  shall  come  again  to  be  our  Judge ;  and 
whether  the  early  Christians  analysed  all  that  was  involved 
in  this  belief  or  not,  there  can  be  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of 
anyone  who  has  analysed  it  that  it  involved  the  possession  of 
attributes  which  can  belong  only  to  God  {e.g.  omniscience). 
Or  take  the  other  outstanding  fact  of  worship  paid  to  Christ 
— such,  e.g.,  as  we  find  in  the  Book  of  Eevelation.  The 
idea  of  Divine  honours  externally  conferred  on  one  who  is 
essentially  but  man  is  quite  foreign  to  the  lN"ew  Testament ; 
and  the  only  alternative  is,  to  suppose  that  Christ  was  from 
the  first  regarded  as  having  a  supernatural  and  Divine  side  to 
His  Person — as  being  essentially  Divine. 

As  regards  the  apostolic  testimony,  the  ground  is  happily  Modem 
cleared  in   modern   times  by  the   large  measure  of   general  ^s:''^^^"^^^^ 

as  to  general 

agreement  which  exists  among  impartial  exegetes  as  to  the  teaching  of 
nature  of  the  doctrines  taught  in  the  several  books.     The  old  ^^"'^ 

TT    •        •  1  1  •   T  1  /¥>  Testament 

Unitarian  glosses  on   passages  which   seemed   to  affirm   the  books— the 

Divinity  of  Christ  are  now  seldom  met  with ;  and  it  is  freely  >''^^^''"'"^ 

admitted  that  the  bulk  of  the  New  Testament  writings  teach  '"*  ' 

a  doctrine  of  Christ's  Person  practically  as  high  as  the  Church 

has  ever  affirmed.     For  instance,  it  is  no  longer  disputed  by 

any  competent  authority  that,  in  Paul   and   John,  it  is   the 

supernatural  view  of   Christ's  Person   that  is  given.     As  to 

John — using   that    name   at  present  for   the  author  of    the 

Fourth  Gospel  and  related  Epistles — his  doctrine  of  Christ  is 

of  the  highest.    This  is  admitted  by  the  most  negative  critics, 

e.g.  by  Dr.  Martineau,  who  says  that  the  phrase  "  Son  of  God  "  Martineau  on 

1  Cf.  Balden sperger,  i)a.s  SelbstheAcusstsein  Jesu,  p.  152.     "How  does  such  a  '^     ivmi yof 

claim,  fit  into  the  frame  of  a  human  consciousness  ?     Such  an  assumption  lies  in  j^     ^  j  /^ 

fact  beyond  all  our  experience,  also  beyond  the  highest  religious  experience,"  ''"^   ^    ^■^■' ^ ' 
etc. 


254   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 


The  Epistles 
ofPmil— 
I.    The 

undisputed 
Epistles. 


applied  to  the  pre-existing  Word  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  leaves 
all  finite  analogies  behind.  "  The  oneness  with  God  which  it 
means  to  mark  is  not  such  resembling  reflex  of  the  Divine 
thought  and  character  as  men  or  angels  may  attain,  but 
identity  of  essence,  constituting  Him  not  god-like  alone,  but 
God.  Others  may  be  children  of  God  in  a  moral  sense ;  but 
by  this  right  of  elemental  nature,  none  but  He  ;  He  is,  herein, 
the  only  Son ;  so  little  separate,  so  close  to  the  inner  Divine 
life  which  He  expresses,  that  He  is  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Father.  This  language  undoubtedly  describes  a  great  deal 
more  than  such  harmony  of  will  and  sympathy  of  affection 
as  may  subsist  between  finite  obedience  and  its  infinite 
Inspirer ;  it  denotes  two  natures  homogeneous,  entirely  one ; 
and  both  so  essential  to  the  Godhead  that  neither  can  be 
omitted  from  any  truth  you  speak  of  it.  .  .  .  It  was  one  and 
the  same  Logos  that  in  the  beginning  was  with  God,  who  in 
due  time  appeared  in  human  form,  and  showed  forth  the 
Father's  pure  perfections  in  relation  to  mankind,  who  then 
returned  to  His  eternal  life,  with  the  spiritual  ties  unbroken 
which  He  brought  from  His  finished  work."  ^  In  this  Gospel, 
therefore,  the  question  is  not  so  much  as  to  the  doctrine 
taught,  but  as  to  whether  the  evangelist  has  given  us  an 
authentic  record  of  what  Christ  said  and  did.  On  this 
question,  so  far  as  it  is  affected  by  the  Christology,  it  will  be 
well  to  reserve  our  judgment  till  we  see  whether  the  other 
writings  of  the  apostolic  age  do  not  give  us — or  yield  by 
implication — quite  as  high  a  view  of  Christ's  Person  as  that 
which  creates  offence  in  John, 

To  aid  us  in  determining  this  question  there  lie  first  to 
hand  the  writings,  above  alluded  to,  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 
Here,  again,  it  is  not  seriously  doubted  that  in  Paul's  un- 
disputed Epistles  we  have  as  clear  and  strong  an  assertion  of 
Christ's  Divine  dignity  as  we  could  well   desire.     That,  in 

^  Stat  of  Authority,  pp.  428-429.  Biedermann,  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  Reuss, 
R^ville,  etc.,  all  agree  in  their  estimate  of  John's  doctrine.  Wendt  {Die  Lehre 
Jesu,  ii.  pp.  450-476),  seems  to  go  back,  and  to  explain  the  expressions  in  John 
only  of  an  ethical  Sonship.     Cf.  Appendix, 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST,      255  -^ 

Paul's  theology,  Christ  had  a  heavenly  pie-existence  ;^  that  the 
title  "  Son  of  God  "  applies  to  Him  in  this  pre-existent  state ; 
that  He  was  a  being  of  Divine  essence ;  that  He  mediated 
the  creation  of  the  world ;  that  in  the  fulness  of  time  He 
took  on  Him  human  nature ;  that  now,  since  His  death  and 
resurrection,  He  has  been  exalted  again  to  Divine  power  and 
glory  —  all  this  the  most  candid  exegetes  now  admit.  A 
new  turn,  however,  has  been  given  in  recent  years  to  this 
theology  of  Paul  by  the  fancy  of  some  theologians  that  this 
heavenly,  pre-existent  essence  of  the  earlier  Pauline  Epistles 
—the  "  Son  of  God  "  who  became  incarnate  in  Christ — is  not 
a  second  Divine  Person,  as  we  understand  that  expression, 
but  a  pre-existent  "  heavenly  man,"  a  being  apparently  of 
subordinate  rank,  at  once  the  perfect  spiritual  image  of  God 
and  the  heavenly  prototype  of  humanity  —  a  conception 
easier  to  state  than  to  make  intelligible.  This  "  heavenly  The 
man"  theory,  as   we  may  call   it,  has  been  seized  on  with  "^^f^^^^-^ 

•^  "^  Man"  theory. 

avidity  by  many  as  the  true  key  to  the  Pauline  Christology.^ 
Beyschlag  of  Halle  adopts  it  as  the  basis  of  his  own  theory, — 
in  this,  however,  differing  from  the  others,  that  he  attributes 
only  an  ideal  pre-existence  to  this  heavenly  principle,^  while 
the  majority  admit  that  what  Paul  had  in  view  was  a  real 
and  personal  pre-existence.  This  whole  hypothesis  of  the 
"  heavenly  man "  I  can  only  regard  as  a  new-fangled  conceit 
of  exegesis,  resting  practically  on  one  passage — that  in  which 
Paul  speaks  of  "  the  second  man  from  heaven,"  * — and  in 
diametric  opposition  to  the  general  teaching  of  the  Epistles. 
It  is  an   hypothesis,  therefore,  which  finds   no  countenance 

1  See  Note  A. — The  Doctrine  tjf  Pre-Existence. 

2  It  goes  back  to  Baur,  and  to  Ritschl,  Entstehung,  p.  80  (1857),  and  has  been 
adopted  by  Holsten,  Hilgenfeld,  Biedermann,  Lipsms,  Pfleiderer,  etc.  Bieder- 
mann  states  it  succinctly  thus: — "The  Person,  the  I  of  Christ,  has  already, 
before  His  appearance  in  the  earthly  corporeity,  in  the  flesh,  pre-existed  in  a 
pre-earthly  condition  with  God  as  the  iIkuv  &iov,  as  the  human  image  of  God, 
and  consequently  as  the  archetypal  pattern  of  humanity  ;  thus  is  He  the  Son 
of  God.  .  .  .  The  appearance  of  Christ  in  the  world,  sent  by  God  in  love,  is  not 
a  becoming  man,  but  a  coming  of  the  heavenly,  pneumatic  Man  in  the  Hesh." — 
Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  93,  97. 

»  Christologie,  pp.  225-226,  243.  *  1  Cor.  xv.  47  (R.V.). 


2:; 6   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 


2.   The  later 
Epistles— 
Christology  of 
Philippians, 

etc. 


Substantial 
unity  of 
doctrine  in 
later  and 
earlier 
Epistles. 


from  more  sober  expositors  like  Meyer,  "Weiss,  or  Eeuss,  all 
of  whom  recognise  in  Paul's  "  Son  of  God "  a  Being  truly 
Divine.^  Christ  indeed,  in  Paul's  view,  has  humanity,  but  it 
is  not  a  humanity  which  He  brought  with  Him  from  heaven, 
but  a  humanity  which  He  assumed  when  He  came  to  earth. 

The  argument  for  the  "  heavenly  man  "  theory  completely 
breaks  down  if  we  take  into  account  the  later  Epistles — 
especially  Philippians,  Ephesians,  and  Colossians,  the  genuine- 
ness of  which  there  are  no  good  grounds  for  disputing.- 
Pfleiderer,  who  advocates  this  theory,  admits  the  genuineness 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians,  but  there  we  have  the 
strongest  assertion  of  Christ's  pre-existent  Divinity.  The 
whole  argument  in  chap.  ii.  5-11,  turns  on  Christ's  original 
condition  of  Divine  glory — "  being  in  the  form  of  God  " — and 
His  voluntary  abdication  of  it  to  take  upon  Him  "  the  form 
of  a  servant" — "being  made  in  the  likeness  of  men" — "being 
found  in  fashion  as  a  man."  ^  As  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Epistles  to  the  Colossians  and  the  Ephesians,  there  is  no 
dispute,  even  among  the  friends  of  this  theory.  In  these 
Epistles,  says  Lipsius,  "  Christ,  as  the  image  of  God  and  the 
first-born  of  the  whole  creation,  is  an  essentially  Divine 
Personality,  and  the  Mediator  of  the  creation  of  the  world."  ^ 
Pfleiderer  sees,  or  imagines  he  sees,  in  them  the  same 
influence  of  the  Philonic  Logos  doctrine  as  is  traceable  in  the 
Gospel  of  John^  —  an  indirect  witness  that  between  the 
theology  of  Paul  in  these  Epistles  and  that  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  there  is  no  essential  difference.  But  though  the 
Christology  of  the  later  Epistles  is  admittedly  more  developed 
than  that  of  the  earlier  Epistles,  the  doctrine  of  Christ  in 
both  is  substantially  one.^     In  both,  Christ  was  "  the  Son  of 

1  See  Weiss's  criticism  in  Biblical  Theology,  i.  pp.  410-412,  and  ii.  p.  100  ; 
Meyer  on  1  Cor.  xv.  47  ;  Corner,  System  of  Doctrine,  iii.  pp.  175-176. 

2  Renan,  Reuss,  Sabatier,  Weiss,  etc.,  accept  them  all  as  Pauline. 

^  Cf.    Bruce's  Humiliation  of  Christ  (Cunningham   Lectures),    pp.    21-28, 
403-411. 
■*  Dogmatik,  p.  453.  ^  Urchristenthnm,  pp.  676,  695. 

«  Cf.  Schmid,  Bib.  Theol.  of  New  Testament,  pp.  469-478  (Eiig.  trans.). 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      257 

God,"  eternally  pre-existing  in  a  state  of  glory  with  the 
Father,  who,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  moved  by  love,  became 
incarnate  for  our  salvation.^  In  both — as  also  in  John — 
He  existed  before  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  was  the 
agent  in  its  creation.^  That  He  is  the  centre  of  the  Divine 
purpose,  and  therefore  the  One  for  whom  all  things  as  well 
as  by  whom  all  things,  are  made,  is  a  doctrine  as  clearly 
taught  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Eomans  and  the  Corinthians  as 
in  those  to  the  Colossians  and  the  Ephesians.^  In  both,  the 
divine  name  Kvpio^  is  freely  given  to  Him ;  passages  applied 
in  the  Old  Testament  to  Jehovah  are  applied  to  Him  also ; 
Divine  honour  is  paid  to  Him ;  He  is  exalted  to  a  Divine 
sovereignty  of  the  world  ;*  His  name  is  constantly  joined  with 
that  of  the  Father  as  the  source  of  grace  and  peace  in  the 
introductions  to  the  Epistles,^  and  again  with  those  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Spirit  in  the  apostolic  benediction ;  ^  it  is 
declared  of  Him  that,  as  Judge,  He  has  the  attribute  of  the 
Divine  searcher  of  hearts.^  Taking  all  the  facts  into  account, 
and  remembering  how  inconsonant  it  would  have  been  with 
Paul's  rigorous  Monotheism  to  attribute  Divine  honours  to  a 
Being  not  truly  Divine,  it  seems  impossible  to  doubt  that,  in 
the  view  of  the  Apostle,  Christ  was  truly  a  Divine  Person, 
one  in  essence,  though  distinct  in  Person  from  the  Father.^ 
But  the  most  remarkable  circumstance  of  all  is — and  it  is  a 


1  2  Cor.  viii.  9 ;  Gal.  iv.  4.  2  i  Qq^^  ^^  g_ 

^  Cf.  Kom.  i.  1-4,  xvi.  25-27  ;  1  Cor.  viii.  6.  Bishop  Lightfoot  says  :  "The 
absolute  universal  mediation  of  the  Son  is  declared  as  unreservedly  in  this 
passage  from  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  ( '  One  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
through  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  through  Him  '),  as  in  any  later  statement 
of  the  apostle ;  and,  if  all  the  doctrinal  and  practical  inferences  which  it 
implicitly  involves  were  not  directly  emphasised  at  this  early  date,  it  was 
because  the  circumstances  did  not  yet  require  explicitness  on  these  points." — 
Commentary  on  Colossians,  pp.  188,  189. 

^  Cf.  on  above  statements,  Weiss,  Biblical  Theology,  i.  pp.  390-393. 

^  Rom.  i.  7  ;  1  Cor.  i.  3 ;  2  Cor.  i.  2 ;  Gal.  i.  3. 

6  2  Cor.  xiii.  14.  7  Rom.  ii.  16  ;  1  Cor.  iv.  5. 

^  It  is  a  noteworthy  circumstance  that  nearly  all  the  modern  scholars  agree 
in  that  interpretation  of  the  strongest  passage  of  all,  Eom.  ix.  5,  "who  is  over 
all,  God  blessed  for  ever,  Amen,"  which  makes  it  refer  to  Christ.  Thus,  e.g., 
Tiothe,  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  Kitschl,  Schultz,  Weiss,  etc. 

17 


258    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  01^  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

point  which  I  desire  specially  to  emphasise — that  in  pro^ 
Paul  assumes  pounding  these  high  views  of  Christ's  Person,  Paul  in  no  case 
LT?  °^^^  speaks  or  argues  as  one  teaching  a  new  doctrine,  but  through- 
doctrine  is  the  out  takes  it  for  granted  that  his  reader  s  estimate  of  the 
same  as  that     \jy^^^  diojnitv  is  the  same  as  his  own.     He  gives  no  indication 

of  the  Churches  .  °  . 

to  zuhich  he      in  thcsc  letters  that  he  preached  or  contended  for  a  higher 

rvntes.  view   of    Christ's    Person    than    that    which    was    currently 

received.^     He  has  no  monopoly  of  this  truth,  but  assumes  it 

as   the   common   possession  of   the  Church.     He   argues   at 

length  for  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  but  we  never 

find  him  arguing  for  the  Divinity  of  Christ.     Whether  writing 

to  his  own  converts,  or  to  churches  he  had  never   seen,  he 

uses    the    same    language   on    this    subject,   and   apparently 

anticipates   no   doubt   or   contradiction   on   the   part   of   his 

readers.     "What  inference  can  we  draw,  but  that  the  doctrine 

of   Christ's   Person  in   the   early  Church   was   anything  but 

Ebionitic, — that  from  the  first  a  Divine  dignity  was  ascribed 

to  Christ  ? 

The  Epistle  Paul's   Epistlcs,  howcver,  are  not   the  only  witnesses  on 

le    e  red)s  ^j^j^    point    of    apostolic    theoloQfV.       Essentially    the    same 

an  independent  r  x:  gj  j 

7vitness.  doctrine  we  find  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  long  attributed 

to  Paul,  but  now  almost  universally  assigned  to  another 
author.  It  has,  therefore,  the  value  of  an  independent  witness. 
The  Epistle  is  further  valuable  for  its  early  date,  most  critics 
unhesitatingly  referring  it  to  the  period  before  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  probably  about  a.d.  QQ}  But  here,  though  the 
writer's  standpoint  is  somewhat  different  from  both  Paul's 
and  John's,  we  find  precisely  the  same  doctrine  as  before, — 
Jesus,  the  Divine  Son  of  God,  the  effulgence  of  the  Father's 
glory  and  very  image  of  His  substance,  the  Creator,  upholder, 
and  heir  of  all  things,  who,  because  the  children  were  par- 
takers of  flesh   and  blood,  Himself   likewise  partook  of   the 

^  Cf.  Eeuss,  History  of  Christian  Theology,  i.  p.  397  (P^ng.  trans.).  The 
passage  is  quoted  below. 

2  Cf.  Weiss,  Introduction  to  New  Testament,  ii,  p.  31  (Eng,  trans.) ;  Dr.  A. 
B.  Davidson,  Hebrews,  etc.  A  few,  like  Pfleiderer  (who,  however,  thinks 
Apollos  may  have  been  the  author),  date  it  later. —  Crchristenthum,  p.  G29. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      259  __ 

same,  and  is  now  again  exalted  to  the  right  hand  of  the 
Majesty  on  high.^  Further,  in  teaching  this  high  Christo- 
logical  view,  the  author  is  not  conscious  any  more  than  Paul 
of  bringing  in  a  new  doctrine.  He  stands  rather  upon  the 
ground  of  the  common  Christian  confession,  which  he  exhorts 
the  Hebrews  to  hold  fast.^ 

It  is  conceded,  however,  that  in  the  main  the  Christology  The 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  is  of  the  Pauline  type,  and  the  ^^''''^yP''  . 

■•'  ^  as  representing 

question   arises — Have   we   anywhere  a   witness  of  another  ajewish- 
type,  showing  how  the  Person  of  Christ  was  viewed  in  the  ^^^^^^^^" 

.        .  standpoint. 

distinctively  Jewish,  as  contrasted  with  the  Gentile  sections 
of  the  Church  ?     The  answer  is  given  in  another  book  of  the 
apostolic  age,  the  early  date  of  which  is  one  of  the  articles 
of  the  modern  creed,  and  which  is  supposed  by  some — e.g.  by 
Volkmar — to  have  been  written  expressly  with  the  view  of 
opposing  Paul.^      I  refer   to   the  Apocalypse.     By   common 
consent    of    the    modern    school    of    critics,   this    book    was 
composed  immediately  after  the  death  of  Xero,*  and  its  anti-- 
Pauline    character    is    not    only   admitted,   but    insisted   on. 
Here,  then,  we  have  what  may  be  regarded  as  a  representative 
early  Jewish-Christian  writing ;  and  the  question  is   of  deep 
interest.  What  kind  of  view  of   Christ's  Person  do  we  find  in 
it  ?     And  the   answer   must   be  given   that   the  doctrine  of  The  doctrine 
Christ  in  the  Apocalypse  is  as  high,  or  nearly  as  high,  as  it  is  ^J^^^/ 
in  either   Paul   or   John.     Picuss,   who   is   certainly  an  un-  high  as  John's 
prejudiced  witness,  has  some  remarks  here  which  are  worth  ^^  ^^^^^^~ 

Neuss, 

quoting  as  corroborative  of   the  previous   line  of   argument,  pjiciderer. 
"  We  may  here  observe,"  he  says,  "  that  the  writings  of  Paul, 

1  Cf.  Weiss,  ii.  pp.  186-190;  Reuss,  ii.  pp.  243,  244.  Eeuss  says:  "It  is 
clear  from  the  figures  chosen  that  the  intention  of  the  theology  is  to  establish 
at  once  the  Divinity  and  the  plurality  of  the  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  side  by 
side  with  the  monotheistic  principle." 

2  Heb.  iv.  14. 

^  Pfleiderer  shares  this  view.  See  it  criticised  by  Reuss,  Christian  Theology, 
i.  pp.  308-312.  Pfleiderer  thinks,  too,  that  the  passage  in  Matthew,  "Whoso- 
ever, therefore,  shall  break  one  of  these  least  commandments,"  etc.  (Matt,  v, 
19),  is  a  blow  aimed  at  Paul's  antinomianism  ! — Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  178. 

^  "It  is  pow  pretty  generally  acknowledged  that  the  date  of  this  book  is  the 
year  68-69  A. d."— Pfleiderer,  Hibbert  Lectures,  p.  153. 


2  6o    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

which  carry  us  back,  so  to  speak,  into  the  very  cradle  of  the 
Church,  contain  nothing  to  indicate  that  their  Christological 
doctrine,  so  different  from  that  of  common  Ebionitism,  was 
regarded  as  an  innovation,  or  gave  rise  to  any  disputations  at 
the  time  of  its  first  appearance.  But  we  have  in  our  hands 
another  book,  essentially  Judseo  -  Christian,  which  gives 
emphatic  support  to  our  assertion.  This  is  the  Book  of 
Eevelation.  ...  It  ought  unhesitatingly  to  be  acknowledged 
that  Christ  is  placed  in  the  Eevelation  on  a  par  with  God. 
He  is  called  the  First  and  the  Last,  the  Beginning  and  the 
End,  and  these  same  expressions  are  used  to  designate  the 
Most  High."  1  Professor  Pfleiderer  is  another  critic  who  puts 
this  point  so  strongly  and  unambiguously,  that  I  cannot  do 
better  than  give  his  words.  "  As,  according  to  Paul,"  he 
says,  "  Christ  has  been  exalted  to  the  regal  dignity  of  Divine 
dominion  over  all,  so,  according  to  our  author,  He  has  taken 
His  seat  on  the  throne  by  the  side  of  His  Father,  participating 
therefore  in  His  Divine  dominion  and  power — He  is  the  Lord 
of  the  churches,  holds  their  stars,  or  guardian  angels,  in  His 
hand,  and  is  also  Euler  of  nations  and  King  of  kings,  the 
all-wise  and  almighty  Judge  of  the  nations ;  indeed,  to  Him 
is  due  a  worship  similar  to  that  of  God  Himself.  As  the 
author  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  his  apotheosis  of  Christ  as  an 
object  of  worship,  thus  almost  outstrips  Paul,  neither  does  he 
in  his  dogmatic  definitions  of  Christ's  nature  at  all  fall  behind 
the  Apostle.  Like  Paul,  he  calls  Christ  the  '  Son  of  God '  in 
the  metaphysical  sense  of  a  godlike  spiritual  being,  and  far 
beyond  the  merely  theocratic  significance  of  the  title.  .  .  . 
As  Paul  had  described  the  celestial  Son  of  Man  as  at  the 
same  time  the  image  of  God,  the  agent  of  creation,  the  head 
of  every  man,  and  finally  even  God  over  all,  so  the  Christ  of 
the  Apocalypse  introduces  himself  with  the  predicates  of 
Divine  majesty  :  '  I  am  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  saith  the 
Lord  God,  who  is,  and  who  was,  and  who  is  to  come,  the 
All-powerful ' ;  and  He  is  accordingly  called  also  the  '  Head 

1  History  of  Christian  Theology,  i.  pp.  397-398  (Eng.  trans.). 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      261      ^    _  ^ 

of  Creation/  and  '  the  Word  of  God/  that  is,  the  mediating 
instrument  of  all  Divine  Eevelation  from  the  creation  of  the 
world  to  the  final  judgment.  It  appears  from  this  that  the 
similarity  of  the  Christology  of  the  Apocalypse  to  that  of 
Paul  is  complete ;  this  Christ  occupies  the  same  exalted 
position  as  the  Pauline  Christ  above  the  terrestrial  Son  of 
Man."  1 

It  is  not  necessary,  after  these  examples,  that   I   should  The  PetHne 
dwell   long   on   the   Christology   of   the   Petrine   and   minor  ^'^^^^'^'' 
Epistles.     Peter  is  again  a  distinct  witness,  and  his  testimony  i.  peter. 
is  in  harmony  with  what  we  have  already  seen.     Christ  is, 
to  refer  only  to  the  First  Epistle,  joined  with  the  Father  and 
the  Spirit  as  one  of  the  principals  in  the  work  of  salvation ;  ^ 
He  is   the  Eedeemer,  foreordained  before  the  foundation  of  . 
the   world,  but   manifest   in   these  last   times ;  ^    His   Spirit 
testified  beforehand  in  the  prophets  ;*  He  is  called  Kvpio^,  and 
passages  used  in  the  Old  Testament  of  Jehovah  are  applied 
to   Him  —  remarkably  in   chap.  iii.   15,  "Sanctify  in   your 
hearts  Christ  as  Lord  " ;  ^  He  has  gone  into  heaven,  and  is  at 
the  right   hand  of   God,  angels  and  authorities  and  powers 
being  made  subject  to  Him ;  ^  He  is  the  ordained  Judge  of 
quick   and  dead.^     He   is    therefore,  as  Weiss  says,  in  His 
exaltation  a  Divine  Being,^  whether  the  Epistle  directly  teaches 
His   pre-existence   or   not,  as,  however,  Pfleiderer  thinks   it 
does.^     Even  James,  who  barely  touches  Christology  in  his  2.  lames. 
Epistle,  speaks  of   Christ  as  the  "Lord  of   Glory,"  and  the 
Judge  of  the  world,  and  prayer  is  to  be  made  in  His  name.^^ 
Not  less  instructive  are  the  references  in  the  brief  Epistle  of 
Jude,  who  describes   Jesus   as  "  our   only  Master  and  Lord,  3.  /tide. 
Jesus  Christ " ;  who  exhorts  believers  to  pray  in  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  keep  themselves  in  the  love  of  God,  looking  for 
the  mercy  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  and  who  concludes  his 

1  Hihhert  Lecture!^,  pp.  159-161.  2  1  pet.  i.  2. 

3  1  Pet.  i.  20.  4  1  Pet.  i.  n. 

6  Cf.  1  Pet.  i.  5,  ii.  13,  iii.  12.  «  1  Pet.  iii.  22. 

7  1  Pet.  iv.  5.  8  Biblical  Theology  of  New  Testament,  i.  p.  238. 
^  Urchristenthum,  p.  659.  ^^  James  ii.  1,  v.  7-9,  14,  15. 


262    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Discourses  in 
Acts. 


Conclusion : 
The  super- 
natural view 
of  Chris  fs 
Person 
established  in 
first 

ge7ieration  of 
believers. 


short  letter  by  ascribing  to  the  only  God,  our  Saviour, 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  glory,  majesty,  dominion,  and 
power,  before  all  time,  and  now,  and  for  evermore.^  If  to 
these  sources  of  evidence  we  add  the  popular  discourses  in 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  we  shall  have  a  tolerably  clear  idea 
of  the  views  of  Christ  held  in  the  Church  in  the  earliest 
period  of  Christianity.  These  discourses,  though,  as  might 
be  expected,  containing  little  or  no  dogmatic  teaching  on  the 
origin  or  constitution  of  Christ's  Person,  yet  do  not  fail  to 
represent  Him  as  possessing  a  unique  dignity ;  ^  as  the  holy 
and  sinless  One,  whom  it  was  not  possible  for  death  to  hold ;  ^ 
as  the  Prince  of  Life,  exalted  to  the  throne  of  universal 
dominion  ;*  as  the  Lord  on  whose  name  men  were  to  call,  the 
One  in  whom  alone  under  heaven  there  was  salvation,  and 
through  whom  was  preached  forgiveness  of  sins  to  men ;  ^  as 
the  Giver  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  ^  as  the  appointed  Judge  of  the 
world,  whom  the  heaven  must  retain  till  the  time  of  the 
restitution  of  all  things.^  These  representations,  though 
simpler,  are  not  inconsistent  with  the  more  developed  Christ- 
ology  of  the  Epistles,  but  rather  furnish  the  data  or  premises 
from  which  all  the  positions  of  that  Christology  can  be 
deduced.^ 

The  supernatural  view  of  Christ,  then,  is  no  late  develop- 
ment, but  was  in  all  its  leading  features  fully  established  in 
the  Church  in  the  generation  immediately  succeeding  Christ's 
death.  We  find  it  presupposed  in  all  the  apostolic  writings, 
and  assumed  as  well-known  among  the  persons  to  whom 
these    writings    were    addressed.       If    there    were,    as    the 


1  Jude4,  20,  21,  25  (R.V.). 

^  Acts  iii.  13,  25,  iv.  27.  "Servant,"  in  sense  of  Isaiali's  "Servant  of 
Jehovah." 

3  ii.  24,  iii.  14.  ^  ii.  36,  iii.  15. 

^  i.  21,  38,  iii.  26,  iv.  10-12,  v.  30,  31. 

6  ii.  33.  7  iii,  20,  21. 

®  Cf.  Weiss,  i.  p.  180  :  "The  Messiah  who  is  exalted  to  this  xvpioryis  must,  of 
course,  be  a  Divine  Being,  although,  for  the  earliest  proclamation,  this  con- 
clusion gave  no  occasion  for  the  consideration  of  the  question  on  how  far  such 
an  exaltation  was  rooted  in  the  original  nature  of  His  Person." 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      263     _    _ 

Tubingen  school  alleges,  Pauline  and  Petrine  parties  in  the 
Church,  it  was  held  by  both  of  these ;  whatever  other  shades 
of  doctrinal  opinion  existed,  this  was  a  common  element. 
But  this,  it  seems  to  me,  is  only  conceivable  on  the  supposition 
that  the  view  in  question  was  one  in  harmony  with  the  facts 
of  Christ's  own  life  on  earth,  with  the  claims  He  made,  and 
with  the  testimony  which  His  apostles  had  deposited  in  the 
various  churches  regarding  Him.  We  are  now  to  see  how 
far  this  is  borne  out  by  the  actual  records  we  possess  of 
Christ's  life. 

II.  We  go  back  then  to  the  Gospels,  and  ask  what  they  //.  The 
teach.     Here  I  leave  out  of  view  the  Fourth  Gospel,  about  t^f'^'^'^y^ 

^    '  the  Gospels— 

the  teaching  of   which   there  can  be  little   possible  dispute.  Christ  in  the 
ISTot  simply  the  prologue,  but  the  acts  and  sayings  of  Christ  fourth  Gospel. 

The  question 

recorded  in  that  Gospel,  are  decisive  for  anyone  who  admits  ofgemnneness; 
it,  as  I  do,  to  be  a  truthful  record  by  the  beloved  disciple  of  ^^^ation  to 
what  Christ  did  and  said  on  earth.^  It  would  be  out  of  place 
here  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  genuineness.  I  would 
only  say  that,  so  far  as  the  objections  are  drawn  from  the 
advanced  Christology  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  alleged  traces  of 
Alexandrian  influence,  after  what  we  have  seen  of  the  general 
state  of  opinion  in  the  apostolic  age,  very  little  weight  need 
be  attached  to  them.  The  Christology  of  John  is  not  a  whit 
higher  than  the  Christology  of  Paul,  or  that  of  the  Epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  or  even  that  of  the  Apocalypse — all  lying 
within  the  apostolic  age ;  the  alleged  traces  of  Philonic 
influence  are  as  conspicuous  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  as 

^  It  is  precisely  the  discourses  of  Jesus  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  which  Wendt, 
in  his  recent  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  is  disposed  to  attribute  to  a  genuine  Johannine 
source.  On  the  difference  of  style  between  the  Johannine  and  the  Synoptical 
discourses,  Godet  remarks  :  "  The  discourses  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  then,  do  not 
resemble  a  photograph,  but  the  extracted  essence  of  a  savoury  fruit.  From  the 
change  wrought  in  the  external  form  of  the  latter,  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
slightest  foreign  element  has  been  mingled  with  the  latter." — Introduction  to 
Commentary,  p.  135  (Eng.  trans.).  The  contrast,  however,  may  be  exaggerated, 
as  shown  by  comparison  of  passages  where  the  Synoptics  and  John  cross  each 
other. — Cf.  Godet,  Introduction,  pp.  155-157. 


264   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  It  is  not  therefore  necessary  to  go 
beyond  the  apostolic  age  to  account  for  them.  I  question, 
indeed,  very  much  whether,  if  we  except  the  prologue — i.e.,  if 
we  keep  to  Christ's  own  doings  and  sayings — there  is  much 
in  John's  Gospel  at  all  which  would  directly  suggest  the 
peculiarities  of  Philo.  There  is  certainly  a  very  exalted 
doctrine  of  Christ's  Person,  but  the  doctrine  is  Christian,  not 
Philonic.^ 
Do  the  It  may,  however,  still  be  said  that  at  least  the  Synoptics  ^ 

Synoptics  give  ^^  ^  ^        different  story.     Here,  it  will  be  maintained,  we 

a  different  J  J  y 

view?  have  the  human,  the  truly  historical  Christ,  in  contrast  with 

the  idealised  and  untrustworthy  picture  of  the  fourth 
evangelist.  Dr.  Martineau  makes  this  his  strongest  ground 
for  the  rejection  of  the  Gospel  of  John.  But  is  it  really  so  ? 
Certainly  it  is  not  so,  if  we  let  these  Gospels — as  it  is  only 
fair  that  in  the  first  instance  we  should  do — speak  fully  and 
freely  for  themselves,  and  do  not,  in  the  interest  of  theory, 
The  Christ  of  Curtail  any  part  of  their  testimony.  The  picture  given  us  in 
t  e  ynoptics    ^^^  Svnoptics  is  not  at  all  that  of  the  humanitarian  Christ. 

also  a  super-  ''       ^ 

natural  We  have  a   true  human   life,  indeed, — the  life  of  One  who 

Being.  ^gj^|.  ^j^  ^^^  Q^|.  among  men  as  a  friend  and  brother,  who 

,  "     .^         grieved,  who  suffered,  who  was  tempted,  who  was  poor  and 

humanity.         o  '  '  r        '  r 

despised, — a  true  "  Son  of  Man,"  in  every  sense  of  the  word. 
But  do  we  not  find  more  ?     Does  this  represent  their  whole 
testimony    about   Christ  ?     On   the  contrary,  does   not  this 
Higher  lowly  Being  move  as  a  supernatural  Personage  throughout, 

aspects.  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  jj^g  character  and  works  bear  amplest  witness  to 

the    justice    of    His    claims  ?      Is    there,    according    to    the 
Synoptics,  nothing   extraordinary   in    the  commencement   of 

^  Harnack  expresses  himself  very  decidedly  on  this  subject.  "Neither  the 
religious  philosophy  of  Philo,"  he  says,  "nor  the  manner  of  thought  out  of 
which  it  originated,  has  exercised  a  provable  influence  on  the  first  generation 
of  Christian  believers.  ...  A  Philonic  element  is  also  not  provable  in  Paul. 
.  .  .  The  apprehension  of  the  relation  of  God  and  the  world  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  is  not  the  Philonic.  Therefore,  also,  the  Logos  doctrine  found  there  is 
essentially  not  that  of  Philo." — Dogmengeschichte,  i,  p.  99.  See  Note  A. — 
Philo  and  the  Fourth  Gospel. 

^  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      265       ^ 

Christ's  life,  nothing   extraordinary  in  its   close,  nothing  in 
keeping  with   this  extraordinary  beginning  and  end  in  the 
career  that  lies  between  ?     It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  to  get  rid  of  Criticism 
all  this  by  denying  the  historical  character  of  the  Gospels,  or  ^"'^^^^^     , 

J  J      ^  -f       '         expunge  the 

pruning  them  down   to  suit ;    but  after  every  allowance  is  stipematural 
made  for  possible  additions  to  the  narrative,  there  remains  a  ^^^^^^^^^' 
clear  enough  picture  of  Jesus  to  enable  us  to  determine  the 
great  subjects  of  His  teaching,  and  the  general  character  of 
His   claims.     In  fact,  the  further  criticism  goes,  the  super-  The 
natural  character  of  Jesus  stands  out  in  clearer  relief.     These  •^^-f^^'^^^^'^^^ 

belongs  to  the 

are     not     mere     embellishments,    mere     external     additions,  essence  of  the 

obscuring  the  picture  of  a  Christ  otherwise  human.     They  ^^P^^^^^^io,i^on. 

are  not  things  that  can  be  stripped  off,  and  the  real  image  of 

Christ  be  left  behind,  as  the  writing  of  a  palimpsest  might 

be  removed  and   the   picture  below   be  brought  into  view. 

The  history  is  the  picture.     All  fair  historical  criticism  must 

see  that  these  supernatural  features  belong  to  the  very  essence 

of   the  historical  representation  of  Jesus  in   the  Gospels,  and 

that,  if  we  take  them  away,  we  have  no  longer  a  historical 

Christ  at  all,  but  only  a  Christ  of  our  own  imaginings ;  ^  that 

we  must  either  take  these  features  as  part  of   our  view  of 

Christ,  or  say  frankly  with  Strauss  that  we  really  know  little 

or  nothing  about  Him.      But  it  is,  first,  the  impossibility  of 

resting  in  this  dictum  with  any  fair  regard  to  the  canons  of 

historical  criticism  which  has  constantly  forced  even  negative 

critics  back  to  a  fuller  recognition  of  the  historical  reality  of 

the  portraiture  in  the  Gospels,  and  has  again  placed  them  in 

the  dilemma  of  having  to  reconsider  these  claims  of  the  Son 

of  Man. 

Let  us  look  at  these  claims  of  Jesus  in  the  Synoptics  a  i.  The 
little  more  in  detail.     Even  this  title  "  Son  of  Man  " — found  'I'''''''  ^-^, 

Jesus — the 

only   in    Christ's   own   lips,  and   never   given   Him   by   1A\^  titles '' Son  of 
followers — has  something  unique  and  exceptional  about   it.  ^^'^"'^^^ 

^  ^  ^  ''Son  of  God." 

it  wells  up  from  the  depths  of  the  consciousness  of  One  who 

^  Cf.  on  this,  BushneH's  Nature  and  the  Supernatural,  chap,  xii.,  ""Water- 
marks on  the  Christian  Doctrine,"  and  Row's  Jems  of  the  Evangelists. 


Relation  to 
kingdom  of 
Gody  etc. 


His 

eschatological 
claims. 


266    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

knew  Himself  to  stand  in  some  peculiar  and  representative 
relation  to  humanity,  and  to  bear  the  nature  of  man  in  some 
exceptional  way.^  He  is  not  simply  "a  Son  of  Man,"  but 
"  the  Son  of  Man  " ;  just  as,  in  a  higher  relation,  He  is  not 
simply  "  a  Son  of  God,"  but  "  the  Son  of  God."  How  high 
this  latter  relation  is,  is  brought  out  in  the  words — "  No  one 
knoweth  the  Son  save  the  Father;  neither  doth  any  know 
the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son 
willeth  to  reveal  Him."  ^  In  conformity  with  the  uniqueness 
of  nature  implied  in  these  titles.  He  claims  to  be  the  Messiah,^ 
the  FulfiUer  of  law  and  prophets,*  the  Founder  of  the  kingdom 
of  God,  the  supreme  Legislator  and  Head  of  that  kingdom,^ 
He,  through  faith  in  whom  salvation  is  to  be  obtained,^  the 
One  who  demands,  as  no  other  is  entitled  to  do,  the  absolute 
and  undivided  surrender  of  the  heart  to  Himself.''  He  for- 
gives sins  with  Divine  authority,^  is  the  giver  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,^  ascribes  an  expiatory  virtue  to  His  death,^^  anticipates 
His  resurrection  and  return  in  glory,^^  announces  Himself  as 
the  appointed  Judge  of  the  world.^^  This  claim  of  Christ  to 
be  the  final  Judge  of  the  world,  found  already  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount ;  ^^  His  repeated  declarations  of  His  future 
return  in  the  glory  of  His  Father,  and  His  own  glory,  and 
the  glory  of  the  holy  angels ;  ^*  the  eschatological  parables,  in 
which  he  makes  the  ultimate  destinies  of  men  depend  on 
relation  to  Himself,^^  are  among  the  most  remarkable  features 
in  His  teaching,  and  are  not  to  be  explained  away  as 
mere  figurative  assurances  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  His 


1  Cf.  Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  i.  p.  55  (Eng.  trans.),  and  System  of  Doctrine, 
iii.  p.  170  ;  Gess,  Christi  Person  und  Werk,  i.  p.  212.  On  the  various  views  as 
to  the  meaning  of  the  title,  see  Bruce,  Humiliation  of  Christ,  pp.  474-487 
(Cunningham  Lecture). 

2  Matt.  xi.  27  (R.V.).  ^  Matt.  xi.  1-6  ;  Luke  iv.  17-21,  etc. 
4  Matt.  V.  17. 

^  Matt.  xiii.  (Parables  of  Kingdom) 

6  Matt.  xi.  28  ;  Luke  vii.  50. 

8  Matt.  ix.  2,  6. 

1^  Matt.  XX.  28,  xxvi.  26-28,  etc. 
12  Matt.  XX V.  31-46,  etc. 
1-*  Mark  viii.  38,  etc. 


Matt.  v. -vii.  (Sermon  on  Mount). 

7  Matt.  x.  37-39. 

9  Matt.  iii.  11,  etc. 

"  Matt.  xvi.  21,  27,  xvii.  23,  xx.  19,  etc. 
^3  Matt.  vii.  21-23. 
15  Matt.  XXV. ;  Luke  xii.  11-27. 


s 

etc. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST      267  __ 

cause.  They  constitute  a  claim  which  must  either  be 
conceded,  or  Christ  be  pronounced  the  victim  of  an  extrava- 
gant hallucination !  We  have  to  add  to  these  claims  of 
Christ,  His  endorsement  of  Peter's  confession  of  the  unique 
dignity  of  His  Person — "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  Peter\ 
the  living  God  " ;  1  His  solemn  words,  so  fraught  with  self-  ''""f'''^''' 
consciousness,  in  answer  to  the  High  Priest's  adjuration — 
"  Henceforth  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  at  the  right 
hand  of  power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds  of  heaven  " ;  ^  and  such 
sublime  declarations,  implying  an  omnipresent  and  omniscient 
relation  to  His  Church,  as  "  Where  two  or  three  are  gathered 
together  in  My  name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  ^ 

These  are  stupendous  claims  of  Christ,  but  we  have  next  2.  Re- 
to  observe   that   the  whole   representation  of   Christ  in   the  ^f ''f  ^^''"'^  ^-^ 

^  the  character 

Synoptic  Gospels  is  worthy  of  them.     I  do  not  dwell  here  on  of  Christ— 
the  holy  majesty  with  which  Christ  bears  himself  throughout  ^^^ 

sinlessness, 

the  Gospels   in  all  circumstances,  on  the  tone  of  authority 

with  which  he  speaks,  on  the  grace  and  tenderness  which 

marked  His  whole  relations  to  men, — I  would  concentrate 

attention   on   the   one   point   that    Christ,  according   to   the 

picture  given  of  Him  in  the  Gospels,  is  a  sinless  Being — in 

this  respect  also  standing  quite  apart  from  other  men.      It  is  Attested  by  the 

the  uniform  testimony  of  the  apostles  and  other  writers  of  ^^^'^^^^^ 

witnesses, 

tlie   New   Testament, — of   Paul,  of    Peter,   of  John,   of   the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  of  the  Apocalypse,* — that  Christ  was 
without  sin ;  and  the  Synoptic  narratives,  in  the  picture  they  Bome  out  by 
give  us  of  a  character  entirely  God-centred,  dominated  by  the  ^^^A^^^''^  ^/ 

^  J  J  ./  ^/^g  Synoptics, 

passion  of  love  to  men,  embracing  the  widest  contrasts, 
maintaining  itself  in  absolute  spiritual  freedom  in  relation  to 
the  world,  to  men  and  to  events,  uniformly  victorious  in 
temptation,  untouched  by  the  faintest  stain  of  base,  paltry, 
or  selfish  motive,  completely  bear  out  this  description.  So 
strong  is  the  evidence  on  this  point  that  we  find  the  sinless- 

1  Matt.  xvi.  16,  17.  2  j^att.  xxv.  64.  ^  jy^att.  xviii.  20. 

^  E.g.,2  Cor.  v.  21  ;  1  Pet.  ii.  22 ;  1  John  iii.  5  ;  Heb.  iv.  15  ;  Rev.  iii.  14, 
etc.  Cf.  on  this  subject  UUmann's  Sinles-viess  of  Jesus,  and  Bushnell's  Nature 
and  the  Supernatural,  x. 


268    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

Admitted  by  ness  of  Christ  widely  admitted,  even  by  the  representatives 
theoioptatts  —  ^^  schools  whose  general  principles,  one  would  imagine,  would 
Vatke,  lead  them  to  deny  it — by  adherents  of  the  Hegelian  school 

c^  leier-  j-j^^  Daub,  Marheineke,  Eosenkrantz,  Vatke  ;  ^  by  mediating 
Ijpsius,  etc.  theologians  of  all  types,  like  Schleiermacher,^  Beyschlag,^ 
Eothe,*  and  Eitschl ;  ^  by  liberal  theologians,  like  Hase  ^  and 
Schenkel,^  and  so  decided  an  opponent  of  the  miraculous  even 
as  Lipsius.^  We  must  contend,  however,  that  if  Christ  was 
really  the  sinless  Being  which  the  Gospels  represent  Him, 
and  His  followers  believed  Him  to  be,  we  have  a  phenomenon 
in  history  which  is  not  to  be  explained  out  of  mere  natural 
grounds,  or  on  any  principle  of  development,  but  a  literal 
new  creation,  a  true  moral  miracle,  involving  further  con- 
sequences as  to  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  exceptional 
Personality  to  whom  these  predicates  of  sinlessness  belong.^ 
3.  The  In  keeping   with  the   character   and  with   the  claims   of 

Ivor  s  of  Jesus  j^g^g  ^^^  ^^  works  ascribed  to  Him  in  the  Gospels.     It  is, 

in  keeping  ^  ' 

with  His         as    the    merest    glance    will    show,    a    supernatural    history 

claims. 

^  Cf.  Dorner's  Person  of  Christ,  v.  pp.  121-131 ;  System  of  Doctrine,  iii. 
p.  261  (Eng.  trans.). 

-  Der  christl.  Glauhe,  sec.  98  (ii.  pp.  78,  83). 

^  Leben  Jesu,  i.  pp.  181-191. 

^  Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  83,  108.  ^  Unterricht,  p.  19. 

^  Geschichte  Jesu,  p.  248.  Hase,  however,  only  recognises  the  sinlessness  of 
Jesus  from  His  entrance  on  His  public  work.  It  was  a  sinlessness  won  by 
struggle. 

''  In  his  DogmatiJc,  see  sketch  in  Pfleiderer's  Dev.  of  Theol.  pp.  177-182. 
Pfleiderer  himself  doubts  the  "psychological  possibility"  of  sinless  perfection, 
and  does  not  ascribe  it  to  Christ. — Ihid.  pp.  117,  118.  In  his  Heligionsphilo- 
Sophie,  i.  p.  339  (Eng.  trans.),  he  blames  Schleiermacher  for  identifying  "this 
personality  so  entirely  with  the  ideal  principle,  that  it  is  exalted  to  an  absolute 
ideal,  and  indeed  to  a  miraculous  appearance."  This  affords  a  good  standard 
for  the  measurement  of  Pfleiderer's  general  Christian  position. 

8  Dogmatik,  sec,  651,  p.  569. 

^  Strauss  acknowledges  this  when  he  says  :  "A  sinless,  archetypal  Christ  is 
not  a  hair's-breadth  less  unthinkable  than  one  supernaturally  born,  with  a 
Divine  and  human  nature." — Der  Christus  des  Glaubens  und  der  Jesus  der 
Geschichte,  p.  63.  But  Strauss  himself  bears  high  tribute  to  the  perfection  of 
Jesus.  "In  the  attainment  of  this  serene  inward  disposition,  in  unity  with 
God,  and  comprehending  all  men  as  brethren,  Jesus  had  realised  in  Himself  the 
prophetic  ideal  of  the  New  Covenant  with  the  Law  written  in  the  heart ;  He 
had — to  speak  with  the  poet — taken  the  Godhead  into  His  will.  ...  In  Him 
man  made  the  transition  from  bondage  to  freedom." — Leben  Jesu,  p.  207  (1864). 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      269 

throughout.  The  miracles  attributed  to  Jesus  are  not  mere 
wonders,  but  deeds  of  mercy  and  love — the  outflow  of  just 
such  Divinity  as  we  claim  for  Him.  They  are,  accordingly, 
wrought  by  Jesus  in  His  own  name,  in  the  exercise  of  His 
own  authority,^  and  are  suitably  spoken  of  as  simply  His 
"  works  "  ^ — i.e.  standing  in  the  same  relation  of  naturalness  to 
Him,  and  to  His  position  in  the  world,  as  our  ordinary  works 
do  to  us,  and  to  our  position  in  the  world.  So  far  from 
being  isolated  from  the  rest  of  His  manifestation,  Christ's 
miracles  are  entirely  of  one  piece  with  it, — are  Eevelations  of 
the  powers  and  spirit  of  His  kingdom,^ — are  the  works  of  the 
kingdom,  or  as  they  are  called  in  John,  "  signs."  *  The  most 
skilful  criticism,  therefore,  has  never  been  able  to  excise 
them  from  the  narrative.  Their  roots  intertwine  inseparably 
with  the  most  characteristic  elements  of  the  gospel  tradition, 
— with  sayings  of  Christ,  for  example,  of  unimpeachable 
freshness,  originality,  and  beauty ;  and,  as  part  of  the  history, 
they  produce  upon  us  precisely  the  same  impression  of 
dignity,  wisdom,  and  beneficence,  as  the  rest  of  the  narrative. 
They  are,  in  short,  integral  parts  of  that  total  presentation  of 
Jesus  which  produces  on  us  so  marked  and  irresistible  an 
impression  of  Divinity.^ 

Even    this   is    not    the    highest    point    in    the    Synoptic  4.  The 
testimony  about  Christ.     If   Christ  died.  He  rose  again  on  ^/^"^'''f^^^'^f 

'^  of  Christ,  the 

the  third  day.      Meeting  with  His  disciples,  He  declares  to  Trinitarian 
them,  "  All  authority  hath  been  given  unto  Me  in  heaven  and  A''''''^^»  ^^^• 
on  earth  " ;  He  commissions  them  to  preach  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  in  His  name  to  all  the  nations ;  He  bids 
them  "  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  baptizing  them  into 
the  name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son  and  of  the  Holy 

1  E.g.,  Matt.  viii.  3,  7-10,  26. 

2  Matt.  xi.  2.  "Mighty  works,"  in  vers.  20,  21,  23,  is  literally  "powers." 
*'  Works  "  is  tlie  favourite  term  in  John. 

3  Matt.  xi.  4,  5  ;  Luke  xi.  20.  ^  j^i^n  ii.  11,  etc. 

5  Cf.  Godet's  Lectures  in  Defence  of  the  Christian  Faith,  iii.,  "The  Miracles 
of  Jesus  Christ,"  p.  124  (Eng.  trans.) ;  and  Pressense,  Vie  de  Jesus,  p.  373 
(Eng.  trans,  p.  277). 


2  70   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

Ghost "  (one  name) ;  He  utters  for  their  encouragement  this 
sublime  promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  always,  even  unto  the 
end  of  the  world."  ^  There  can  be  no  mistake  as  to  the 
meaning  of  this  Trinitarian  formula,  which,  as  Dorner  says, 
does  not  express  a  relation  to  men,  but  "  requires  us  to  regard 
the  Father  as  the  Father  of  the  Son,  and  the  Son  as  the  Son 
of  the  Father,  and  therefore  does  not  signify  a  paternal 
relation  to  the  world  in  general,  but  to  the  Son,  who,  standing 
between  the  Father  and  the  Spirit,  must  be  somehow  thought 
as  pertaining  to  the  sphere  of  the  Divine,  and  therefore 
denotes  a  distinction  in  the  Divine  itself."  ^  Attempts  are 
made  to  challenge  the  authenticity  of  these  sayings.  But 
they  are  at  least  part  of  the  Synoptic  representation  of  Christ, 
and  must  be  taken  into  account  when  the  comparison  is 
between  the  Synoptic  representation  and  that  found  in  John, 
and  in  other  parts  of  the  Xew  Testament.  When,  however, 
Christ's  whole  claim  is  considered,  no  valid  objection  can  be 
taken  to  these  sayings,  except  on  principles  which  imply  that 
the  resurrection  never  took  place  at  all, — a  position  which 
works  round  to  the  subversion  of  the  claim  itself.^ 

The  Synoptic        Such  then,  is  the  view  of  Christ  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  ; 

representahon  ^^^^  ^^^  conclusion  I  draw  is,  that  it  is  in  keeping  with  the 

of  Christ  in  ^      ^ 

keeping  with    estimate    formed   of    Christ's   Person   in    the    apostolic   age. 
the  apostohc     n^j^g  ^^^  thinejs  are  in  harmony.     Given  such  a  life  as  we 

estimate  of  ^  '' 

His  Person,     havc  in   the  Gospels,  this  explains   the   phenomena   of   the 
The  latter       apostolic   age.       On   the   other   hand,  given   the  estimate  of 

needs  the  ^      .     ,     ^  t  -,     -         ^ 

former  as  its    Christ  s  Pcrson  and  work  m  the  apostolic  age,  this  supports 
basis.  the  reliableness  of  the  picture  of  Christ  in  the  Gospels,  for 

only  from  such  a  life  could  the  faith  of  the  Church  have 
originated.  We  have,  in  this  Synoptic  picture,  the  very 
Being  whom  the  writings  of  Paul  and  John  present  to  us ; 
and  the  forms  they  use  are  the  only  forms  which  can 
adequately  interpret  Him  to  us.     In  other  words,  given  the 

'  Matt,  xxviii.  18-20.  ^  System  of  Doctrine,  i.  p.  351  (Eng.  trans.). 

•*  See  Note  B. — The  Resurrection  of  Christ  and  the  Reality  of  His  Divine 
Claim. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      271 

Christ  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  the  doctrine  of  Paul  and 
John  is  felt  to  be  the  only  adequate  explanation  of  His 
character  and  claims.  I  agree,  therefore,  entirely  with 
Dorner  when  he  says,  "  It  may  be  boldly  affirmed  that  the 
entire  representation  of  Christ  given  by  the  Synoptics  may 
be  placed  by  the  side  of  the  Johannine  as  perfectly  identical, 
inasmuch  as  faith,  moulded  by  means  of  the  Synoptic 
tradition,  must  have  essentially  the  same  features  in  its 
concept  of  Christ  as  John  has " ;  and  adds,  "  Those  who 
reject  the  Gospel  of  John  on  account  of  its  glorifying  of 
Christ,  can  hardly  have  set  themselves  in  clear  relations  with 
the  Synoptic  Christology."  ^ 

I  claim,  then,  to  have  shown  that  if  we  are  to  do  justice  Conclusion: 
to  the  facts  of  Christianity,  we  must  accept  the  supernatural  ^^^f^^^f  ^f 
view  of  Christ's  Person,  and  recognise  in  Him  the  appearance  revelation 
of    a   Divine   Being  in    humanity.     The   argument    I    have  ^^'/^^'^^  ^^^^ 

1  T        .(.    .     1  PIT  1  supernattiral 

conducted — it  it  be  correct — goes  further  than  to  show  that  ^^^^  0/^7^ 
this   doctrine  is   an   integral   part   of   Christianity.      If   this  ^-^^'-^^'^  •' 
were    all,   it    might    still   be   said,    Eather    than    that   this  ^oTevadin^or ^ 
doctrine  be  accepted,  let  Christianity  go  1     But  if  my  con-  ^"  claims. 
tention  is  right,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  let  Christianity  go. 
The  reason   why  Christianity  cannot  be  waived  out  of  the 
world  at  the  bidding  of  sceptics  simply  is,  that  the  facts  are 
too    strong   for    the    attempt.      The    theories    which   would 
explain    Christianity    away   make    shipwreck    on    the   facts. 
But,  if  Christianity  is  not  to  be  parted  with,  its  full  testimony 
to  itself  must  be  maintained ;  and  we  have  now   seen  what 
this  means.     Formerly  it  was  shown  that  the   attempts  to 
maintain    Christianity,    while    rejecting    the    truth    of    the 
Incarnation,   have    uniformly    failed.       Now    we    have   seen 
wliy  it  is  so.     It  was  shown  also  whither  the  rejection  of 
Christianity  led    us,  and   how   the  painful   steps   of    return 
conducted  us  back  throuoh  Theism  to  Eevelation,  and  through 
Eevelation    to   belief    in    Christ    as    the    supreme   Eevealer. 
But  this  faith  leads  us  again  to  His  testimony  about  Himself, 

^  Person  of  Christ,  i.  pp.  60,  61. 


272    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

and  so  once  more  to  the  Incarnation.  Thus  it  is  that  the 
Lord  stands  constantly  challenging  the  ages  to  give  their 
answer  to  His  question,  "  What  think  ye  of  Christ  ?  whose 
Son  is  He  ? "  1  and  increasingly  it  is  shown  that  it  is  not  in 
the  world's  power  to  put  this  question  aside.  However 
silenced  for  the  moment,  it  soon  again  asserts  its  rights,  and 
will  not  cease  to  be  heard  till  humanity,  from  one  end  of  the 
earth  to  the  other,  has  joined  in  the  devout  acknowledgment 
— "  My  Lord  and  my  God  !  "  2 

///.  Doctrinal      III.  This  fact  of   the  Incarnation  being  given,  how  are 
aspects  of  the    ^^  ^^  interpret  it  ?     The  full  discussion  of  what,  doctrinally, 

Incarfiation :  ^  . 

proposed         is  involved  in  the  Incarnation,  belongs  rather  to  dogmatics 
reco7istruction.  ^j^^^^  ^^  ^^  present  inquiry ;  but  certain  limiting  positions 
may  at   least  be   laid  down,  which   may  help  to  keep   our 
thoughts  in  harmony  with  the  facts  we  have  had  before  us, 
and  may  serve  as  a  check  on  modern  theories  which,  pro- 
fessing to  give  us  a  re-reading  of  this  all-important  doctrine 
more  in  agreement  with  the   Christian  verity  than  the  old 
Christological   decisions,   fall   short   of,  or   go   beyond   these 
facts.     The  early  decisions  of  the  Church  on  Christ's  Person 
are  not,  indeed,  to  be  regarded  as  beyond  criticism.     It  may 
very  well  be  that  reconstruction  is  needed  in  this  doctrine  as 
in  many  others.      Only,  we  should  be  careful  not  to  part  with 
the  old  formulas  till  something  better — something  at  least 
equally  true   to   the  facts   of  Christianity — is   put  in  their 
place ;  and  I  confess  that  most  of  the  modern  attempts  at  a 
revised  Christology  do  not  seem  to  me  to  fulfil  this  condition. 
In  what  sense       Constrained  by  the  evidence  of  Scripture,  many  theologians 
^aeoHes ascribe^"^^^  in  ascribing  "Godhead"  to  Christ,  whose  views  of  the 
''  Godhead''  to  Person  of  Christ  yet  fall  short  of  what  the  complete  testimony 
Kothc~         ^^    Scripture    seems    to   require.       Schleiermacher    may    be 
Ritschi,  included  in  this  class,  though  he  avoids  the  term ;  ^  of  more 

Upsius,  etc.        ,  ^j^^^^  ^^..  ^2,  ,  j^j^^^  ^^^  2g_ 

^  See  Schleiermacher's  views  in  Be?-  christl.  Glaube,  ii.  pp.  56,  57,  93.  He 
says  :  "  Inasmucli  as  all  the  human  activity  of  Christ  in  its  whole  connection 
depends  on  this  being  of  God  in  Him,  and  represents  it,  the  expression  is 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      273 

recent  theologians,  Eothe,  Beyschlag,  Eitschl,  Lipsius,  etc.,  who 
speak  freely  of  the  "  Godhead  "  (Gottheit),  "  God-manhood  " 
(Gottmenschheit),  of  Christ,  and  of  the  "  Incarnation " 
(Menschwerdung)  of  God  in  Him.^  But  what  do  these  ex- 
pressions mean  ?  In  all,  or  most,  of  these  theories,  Christ  has 
a  high  and  unique  position  assigned  to  Him.  He  is  the  second 
Adam,  or  new  Head  of  the  race.  Son  of  God  in  a  sense  that 
no  other  is,  archetypal  Man,  sinless  Mediator  and  Eedeemer 
of  mankind.^  This  is  a  great  deal,  and  must  be  recognised  in 
any  theory  of  the  Incarnation.  All  these  theories  acknowledge, 
further,  a  peculiar  being  or  Revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  on 
the  ground  of  which  these  predicates  "  Godhead  "  and  "  God- 
manhood  "  are  ascribed  to  Him.  But  what  is  its  nature  ? 
In  Schleiermacher,  as  already  seen  in  the  second  Lecture,  it 
is  the  constant  and  energetic  activity  of  that  God-conscious- 
ness which  is  potentially  present  in  every  man — which 
constitutes,  therefore,  an  original  element  in  human  nature.^ 
In  Eothe,  it  is  an  ethical  union  of  God  with  humanity, 
gradually  brought  about  in  the  course  of  the  sinless  develop- 
ment of  Christ,  and  constituting,  when  complete,  a  perfect 
indwelling  of  God  in  man^ — a  perfect  unity  of  the  Divine  and 
human.*  In  Beyschlag,  it  is  the  consciousness  of  a  perfect 
and  original  relation  of  Sonship  to  God,  which  has  its 
transcendental  ground  in  an  impersonal  (Divine -human) 
principle  eternally  pre-existent  in  the  Godhead.^     In  Eitschl, 

justified  that  in  the  Redeemer  God  became  man,  in  a  sense  trae  of  Him 
exclusively  ;  as  also  each  moment  of  His  existence,  so  far  as  one  can  isolate  it, 
represents  a  new  and  similar  incarnation  of  God  and  state  of  being  incarnate  ; 
since  always  and  everywhere,  all  that  is  human  in  Him  proceeds  out  of  that 
which  is  i)ivine."— Pp.  56,  57.  He  objects  to  the  term  "God-Man"  as  too 
definite.— P.  93. 

1  Rothe,  Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  88,  107,  etc.;  Beyschlag,  Lehen  Jem,  p.  191,  etc.; 
Ritschl,  Eecht.  und  Ver.  iii.  pp.  364-393  ;  Unterricht,  p.  22  ;  Lipsius,  Dog- 
matik, p.  457.  Cf.  also  Schultz,  Lehre  von  der  Gottheit  Christi,  pp.  536,  537  ; 
Hermann,  Verkehr  des  Christen  mlt  Gott,  pp.  42-62  ;  Nitzsch,  Evangelische 
Dogmatik,  ii.  p.  514,  etc. 

2  Schleiermacher,  ii.  p.  91  ;  Lipsius,  sec.  638. 

3  Der  christi.  Glauhe,  ii.  pp.  40,  56.     Cf.  Lipsius,  p.  492. 
*  Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  88-97,  165-182. 

^  Lehen  Jesu,  i.  p.  191  ;  Chrlstologie,  pp.  58,  84,  etc. 

18 


2  74   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

the  "Godhead"  of  Christ  has  a  purely  moral  and  religious 
sense,  expressing  the  fact  that  in  Christ,  as  the  supreme 
Eevealer  of  God,  and  Founder  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  there 
is  perfect  oneness  of  will  with  God  in  this  world-purpose, 
and  a  perfect  manifestation  of  the  Divine  attributes  of  grace 
and  truth,  and  of  dominion  over  the  world.^  In  Lipsius, 
again,  and  those  who  think  with  him,  "  Incarnation "  and 
"  Godhead "  denote  the  realisation  in  Christ  of  that  perfect 
relation  of  sonship  to  God  (Gottessohnschaft)  which  lies  in 
the  original  idea  of  humanity,  and  the  perfect  Eevelation  of 
the  Divine  will  of  love  (Liebewillen)  in  that  Eevelation.^ 
!N"ow  I  do  not  deny  that  in  these  theories  we  have  a  certain 
union  of  the  Divine  and  human,  just  as  believers  in  Christ, 
through  union  with  Him  and  participation  in  His  Spirit, 
become  "sons  of  God,"  and  "partakers  of  the  Divine  nature."^ 
1  do  not  deny,  further,  that  these  theories  secure  for  Christ  a 
certain  distinction  from  every  other,  in  that  they  make  Him 
the  original  type  of  that  relation  of  Divine  Sonship  into 
which  others  can  only  enter  through  Him.  It  is  a  thought 
also  which  not  unnaturally  occurs,  whether  on  this  idea  of  a 
God-filled  humanity — a  humanity  of  which  it  may  be  truly 
said  that  in  an  ethical  respect  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead 
dwells  in  it  bodily — we  have  not  all  that  is  of  practical 
value  in  any  doctrine  of  Incarnation.  We  must  beware, 
however,  of  imposing  on  ourselves  with  words,  and  I  believe 
that,  if  we  do  not  rise  to  a  higher  view,  it  will  be  difficult,  as 
the  second  Lecture  showed,  to  prevent  ourselves  drifting  to 
pure  humanitarianism. 

1  Unterricht,  p.  22.  It  will  be  seen  that  this  is  a  tolerably  complex  idea  of 
"  Godhead." 

"  DogmatiJc,  pp.  574,  575.  Lipsius  distinguishes  between  the  "  principle " 
of  the  Christian  religion— Avhich  is  that  of  religion  absolutely— and  the 
historical  revelation  of  that  principle  in  the  Person  and  Work  of  Christ.— Pp. 
535-536.  Yet  this  principle  is  not  accidentally  or  externally  bound  up  with 
Christ,  as  if  He  were  only  casually  the  first  representative  of  it,  or  His  work 
only  the  external  occasion  for  the  symbolical  representation  of  the  general 
activity  of  this  principle  in  humanity.— Pp.  537,  538. 

^  John  i.  12  :  2  Pet.  i.  4. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST      275 

Two    things    are    to   be   considered   here— First,   ^^^qWi^x  Two  questions 
these  theories  are  tenable  on  their  own  merits  ?  and,  second,  ^^  ^"^^^'^  ^^ 

.  ,       .        .  these  theories. 

whether  they  do  justice  to  the  facts  of  Christ's  Eevelation, 
and  to  the  data  of  the  New  Testament  generally  ?  I  shall 
offer  a  few  remarks  on  these  points,  then  add  a  brief  notice 
of  the  theories  known  as  Kenotic. 

1.  There  are  two  classes  of  these  theories — those  which  i.  First 
do  not,  and  those  which  do,  presuppose  a  transcendental  or  question— ^r^ 

these  theoHes 

metaphysical  ground  for  the  predicate  "  Godhead  "  applied  to  tenable  on 
Christ,  and  as  important  differences  exist  between  them,  it  is  ^^^^^  '^^^ 

.        .  T     .  -IT  merits? 

desirable  to  distinguish  them.  Two  classes 

(1)  Of    the   former    class    are   those   of    Schleiermacher,  ^''/^ 
Eitschl,  Lipsius,  with  many  others  that  might  be  named.     I  /j)  ^^rhose 
abstract  from  other  features  in  these  theories,  and  look  only  -^^^ich  do  not 
at  the  grounds  on  which  "  Godhead  "  is  ascribed  to  ^^'^^^'^  \  transcendental 
and  I  do  not  find  any  which  transcend  the  limits  of  humanity,  ground  for  the 
Christ  is  archetypal  man,  ideal  man,  sinless  man,  the  Perfect  ff^J^^^'^^^,, 
Eevelation  of  grace  and  truth,  the  central  individual  of  \h^  applied  to 
race,  the  bearer  of  the  principle  of  true  religion,  the  Founder  ^.r/!~ 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  in  humanity,  the  pre-eminent  object  macher, 
of  the  Father's  love, — but  He  is  not  more  than  man.     His  ^^^^^'^^' 

LtpstuSf  etc. 

humanity  may  be  a  "  God-filled  "  humanity  ;  still  a  God-filled 
man  is  one  thing,  and  God  become  man  is  another.  There 
may  be  participation  in  the  Divine  life — even  in  the  Divine 
nature — on  the  part  of  the  ordinary  believer ;  but  the  man 
in  whom  God  thus  dwells  does  not  on  this  account  regard 
himself  as  Divine,  does  not  speak  of  himself  as  a  Divine 
person,  does  not  think  himself  entitled  to  Divine  honours, 
would  deem  it  blasphemy  to  have  the  term  "Godhead" 
applied  to  him.  If,  therefore,  this  is  the  only  account  we 
can  give  of  Christ's  Person,  it  is  clear  that  this  predicate 
"Godhead"  can  never  properly  be  applied  to  Him.  We 
might  speak  of  the  Divine  in  Christ,  but  we  could  not  say 
that  Christ  himself  was  Divine.  We  might  see  in  Him  the 
highest  organ  of  Divine  Eevelation,  but  we  would  require  to 
distinguish   between    the    God   revealing    Himself,   and   the 


2  76   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

humanity  through  which  He  is  manifested.  It  would  be 
blasphemy  here  also  to  speak  of  Christ  Himself  as  God.  It 
would  be  idolatry  to  give  Him  Divine  honours.  We  find, 
therefore,  that  Eitschl  has  to  admit  that  it  is  only  in  a 
figurative  and  improper  sense  that  the  Church  can  attribute 
"  Godhead "  to  Christ.^  This  predicate,  he  says,  is  not  a 
theoretic  truth,  but  only  a  judgment  of  value— an  expression 
of  the  worth  which  Christ  has  for  the  religious  consciousness 
of  the  believer.  In  further  carrying  out  the  same  idea,  both 
Schleiermacher  and  Eitschl  strip  away,  as  formerly  shown, 
all  the  eschatological  attributes  from  Christ,  and  resolve  His 
sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  His  return  to  judge  the 
world,  etc.,  into  metaphors.  The  only  real  sense  in  which 
Christ  is  spiritually  present  in  His  Church  is  through  the 
perpetuation  of  His  image,  of  His  teaching,  and  of  His 
influence  in  the  community  of  believers.^  This  is  the 
legitimate  consequence  of  a  theory  which  does  not  go  beyond 
the  bounds  of  the  human  in  its  estimate  of  Christ ;  for  if 
the  eschatological  teaching  of  Jesus  is  admitted,  it  seems 
impossible  to  stop  short  of  a  much  higher  view  of  His  Person. 
This  method,  however,  of  simply  sweeping  aside  what  is 
distasteful  is  too  violent  to  be  long  endured;  there  are 
besides  those  utterances  of  Jesus  which  bespeak  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  relation  different  in  kind,  and  not  merely  in 
degree,  from  that  sustained  by  others  to  the  Father.  This 
class  of  theories,  therefore,  naturally  passes  over  to  another — 
that  which  seeks  to  do  justice  to  the  facts  by  admitting  a 
deeper  ground  for  Christ's  Personality  than  the  earthly  one. 
(2)  ^J'hose  (2)  Of  this  second  class  of  theories,  I  may  take  those  of 

^presuppose  a    ^'^'^^  ^^^  Beyschlag  as  examples.     Eothe  thinks  he  effectu- 

transiendental 

/ir^'^"^''''    '  ^'*''^^'  ^''''^-  ''''^  ^'''-  '"•  p-  ^' ^• 

^  [^ ..      _  ^  Ritschl,  Recht.  mid  Ver.  pp.  383,  384,  407,  408.     "In  any  otlier  sense,"  he 

aC/i7  ^  ^l^inks,  ''the  formula  of  the  exaltation  of  Christ  to  the  right  hand  of  God  is 

£e  'schlacr         ®^^^^®^  without  content  for  us,  because  Christ  as  exalted  is  directly  hidden  for 

eysciag.         ^^g .    ^^  becomes  the  occasion  of  all  possible  extravagance  (Sehwarmerei)."— 

P.  407.     Schleiermacher,  Der  christl.  Glaube,  pp.   84-88,   290-292;   Lipsius, 

Dogmatik,  pp.  494,  587. 


THE  INCARNA  TION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      2  7  7 

ally  secures  the  idea  of  Christ's  Godhead  by  assuming  that, 

in  the  course  of  Christ's  sinless  development,  God  constantly 

unites  Himself  with  Him  in  closer  and  closer  relations,  till  at 

length  a  perfect  union  both  of  person  and  of  nature  is  effected.^ 

Beyschlag  thinks  to  do  the  same  by  supposing  that  a  Divine 

impersonal    principle  —  a   pre-existent  ideal    humanity  —  is 

somehow  incarnated  in  Christ.^      But  not  to  speak   of  the 

absence  of  scriptural  proof  for  both  of  these  theories,  see  the 

difficulties   under   which   they  labour.     Can  it  be   seriously 

said  that,  if  a  transcendental  ground  of  Christ's  Person  is  to 

be  admitted,  these  theories  have  any  advantage  in  simplicity 

or  intelligibility  over  the  old  view  ?     Take  Eothe's  theory,  imonsistendes 

What   are  we  to   make  of   the  supposition  of  a   personality '^^^ 

which   begins   as   human,   and    ultimately   and   gradually   is 

changed  into  Divine  ?     Then  what  is  meant  by  two  persons 

merging  into  one,  and  this  by  moral  process  ?     For  God  is 

one  Person  to  begin  with,  and  Christ  is  another,  and  at  length 

a  perfect  union  is  effected  of  both.     Do  we  really  in  this 

theory  get  beyond  the  idea  of  an  ethical  union,  or  perfect 

moral  fellowship,  in  which,  after  all,  the  two  Persons  remain 

distinct,  though   united  in   will   and  love  ?     If   this   is   the 

character  of  the  union,  it  is  only  by  a  misuse  of  terms  that 

we  can  speak  of  Christ  becoming  really  God.     Yet  Eothe  is 

perfectly  in  earnest  with  this  conception  of  the  deification  of 

Christ,  so   we  ask  finally — How   is   this   newly  constituted 

Person  related  to  God  the  Father.     For  Eothe  acknowledges 

no  immanent  distinction  of  Persons  in  the  Godhead,  and  it  is 

the  Father  Himself  who  thus  unites  Himself  with  Christ,  and 

confers  Godhead  upon  His  Person.       Eothe  says  expressly, 

"  The  Incarnation  of  God  in  the  Second  Adam  is  essentially 

an  incarnation  of  both  in  Him— of  the  Divine  personality, 

and  of  the  Divine  nature."  ^     But  if  it  is  the  One  absolute 

Personality  whom  we  call   God,  who  enters  into  the  union 

with  the  humanity  of  Jesus,  how  can  the  resultant  relation 

1  Dogmatih,  pp.  165-182.  2  Christologie,  p.  84,  etc. 

^  Dogmatik,  ii.  p.  172. 


2  78    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OE  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 


Adds  a  new 
Person  to  the 
Godhead. 


Difficulties  of 
Beyschlag's 
theory  of  a 
heavenly 
humanity. 


2.  Second 
question — 
Do  these 
theories  do 
justice  to  the 
facts  of 
Christ's 
Revelation  ? 


be  described  as  that  of  Father  and  Son  ?  Or  if  a  new 
Divine  Person  really  is  constituted,  does  not  Eothe's  theory 
amount  to  this,  that,  since  the  Incarnation,  a  new  Person  has 
been  added  to  the  Godhead  ?  But  what  does  the  constitution 
of  a  new  Divine  Person  mean  ?  Is  it  not,  if  the  expression 
is  to  be  taken  literally,  very  like  a  contradiction  in  terms  ? 
I  need  not  wait  long  on  Beyschlag's  rival  theory  of  a  pre- 
existent  impersonal  humanity,  which  solves  no  difficulties, 
and  is  loaded  with  inconceivabilities  of  its  own.  For  in 
what  sense  can  this  idea  of  humanity  be  spoken  of  as  Divine, 
any  more  than  any  other  idea  of  the  Divine  mind  which  is 
realised  in  time  ? — the  idea,  e.g.,  of  the  world,  or  of  the  believer, 
or  of  the  Church.  What,  besides,  is  meant  by  a  heavenly, 
ideal  humanity  ?  Does  it  include  only  the  single  Person  of 
Christ,  or  not  also  all  the  members  of  the  human  race  ?  ^ 
How,  further,  is  this  ideal  humanity,  which  forms  the  super- 
natural principle  in  Christ,  related  to  His  actual  humanity 
of  flesh  and  blood,  which  came  to  Him  "of  the  seed  of 
David  ?  "  2  Finally,  if  Christ's  Person  was  thus  peculiarly 
constituted,  even  in  respect  of  its  humanity,  how  can  it  be 
said  of  Him  that  He  was  made  in  all  things  like  unto  His 
brethren  ?  ^  It  may  seem  a  waste  of  time  to  discuss  such 
questions ;  yet  theories  like  Eothe's  and  Beyschlag's  have 
their  uses;  for  they  aid  us,  by  a  process  of  exclusion,  in 
seeing  what  the  true  theory  must  be,  and  where  we  are  to 
look  for  it. 

2.  The  second  question  I  proposed  to  ask  is  already  in 
large  measure  answered  in  the  course  of  the  above  discussion, 
Do  these  theories  do  justice  to  the  facts  of  Christ's 
Eevelation,  and  to  the  data  of  the  New  Testament  generally  ? 

^  Cf.  his  Christologie,  p.  58  ;  and  Leben  Jesu,  p.  46.  ^  Rom.  i.  4. 

^  Heb.  ii.  17.  Beyschlag  would  avoid  some  of  these  difficulties,  if  he  kept 
consistently  by  the  position  that  Christ  is  but  the  perfect  realisation  of  the 
"Ebenbild"  of  humanity,  which  is  fragmentarily  realised  in  all  men, — is,  in 
fact,  simply  the  ideal  Man  ;  but  he  seeks  to  establish  a  metaphysical  distinction 
between  Christ's  humanity  and  ours,  in  virtue  of  which  His  personality  is 
"originally  and  essentially"  Divine,  while  ours  is  not— Christologie,  p.  58. 
See  further  on  Beyschlag's  views  in  Appendix. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST      279 

They  clearly  do  not,  either  in  a  negative  or  a  positive  re- 
spect. There  is  no  hint  in  the  Scriptures  of  either  Eothe's 
gradual  incarnation,  or  of  Beyschlag's  pre-existent  principle 
of  humanity ;  but  there  are  many  passages  which  directly,  or 
by  implication,  claim  for  Christ  personal  pre-existence,  and 
attribute  to  Him  Divine  acts  and  functions  in  that  state  of 
pre-existence.  But,  apart  from  this,  all  those  passages  which 
claim  for  Christ  a  unique  relation  of  Sonship  to  the  Father, 
taken  with  the  sayings  which  imply  His  consciousness  of  the 
possession  of  attributes  and  functions  raised  above  those  of 
humanity,  point  to  a  super-earthly  and  pre-incarnate  state  of 
existence.  And  this  brings  us  back  to  the  fundamental^ 
distinction  between  a  true  and  a  false  or  inadequate  What  is  mt, 
doctrine  of  Incarnation.  Incarnation  is  not  simply  the '^'^^ '^'^^^  ^•^' 
endowing  of  human  nature  with  the  highest  conceivable /«<:a^«rt//<j//. 
plenitude  of  gifts  and  graces ;  it  is  not  a  mere  dynamical 
relation  of  God  to  the  human  spirit — acting  on  it  or  in  it 
with  exceptional  energy ;  it  is  not  simply  the  coming  to 
consciousness  of  the  metaphysical  unity  all  along  subsisting 
between  humanity  and  God ;  it  is  not  even  such  moral  union, 
such  spiritual  indwelling,  and  oneness  of  character  and  will 
as  subsists  between  God  and  the  believer — still  less,  of  course, 
is  it  analogous  to  the  heathen  ideas  of  sons  of  the  gods, 
where  the  relation  is  that  of  physical  paternity — or  of  the 
appearances  of  gods  in  human  guise — or  even  of  temporary 
appearances  in  humanity,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Avatars  of 
Vishnu.  The  scriptural  idea  of  the  Incarnation  is  as  unique 
as  is  the  Biblical  conception  as  a  whole.  It  is  not,  to  state 
the  matter  in  a  word,  the  union  simply  of  the  Divine  nature 
with  the  human, — for  that  I  acknowledge  in  the  case  of 
every  believer  through  the  indwelling  Spirit,  —  but  the 
entrance  of  a  Divine  Person  into  the  human.  That  there  is  / 
an  analogy,  and  a  closer  one  than  is  sometimes  admitted, 
between  the  believer's  relation  to  God,  and  Christ's  relation 
to  the  Father,  is  expressly  declared  in  Christ's  own  words  in 
John  xvii.   21,  where  He  asks  "that  they  may  all  be  one; 


28o   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

even  as  thou  Father  art  in  Me,  and  I  in  Thee,  that  they 
may  be  one  in  us."  But  the  subject  here  is  moral  union — 
not  union  of  essence,  as  in  John  i.  1,  and  perhaps  John  x.  30, 
— but  the  mutual  ensphering  of  personalities  in  an  atmosphere 
of  love,  such  as  obtains  in  its  highest  degree  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  For  "  he  that  abideth  in  love,  abideth 
in  God,  and  God  abideth  in  him."  ^  There  is  this  also  in 
Christ.  But  the  distinction  remains — these  personalities  of 
ours  are  human,  and  continue  so,  no  matter  how  entirely 
filled,  penetrated,  possessed,  with  the  light  and  love  and 
knowledge  of  God  they  may  be ;  btit  His  was  a  Personality 
of  a  higher  rank — a  Divine  Personality,  which  entered  into 
the  limitations  and  conditions  of  humanity  from  above, 
which  was  not  originally  human,  as  ours  is,  but  became  so. 
Here  questions  deep  and  difficult,  I  acknowledge,  crowd  thick 
upon  us,  to  many  of  which  no  answer  may  be  possible ;  but 
so  much  as  this,  I  think,  is  assuredly  implied  in  the  Christian 
Incarnation. 
l.'Considera-  3.  Before,  however,  venturing  further  in  this  direction,  I 
^r^^.^  must  bestow   at   least   a  glance  on  what  is  known   as  the 

theories  qucstiou  of  the  Kenosis.     This  word,  meaning  "emptying," 

(/%//.  11.  7).  -g  taken,  as  is  well  known,  from  Phil.  ii.  7,  in  which  passage 
Christ  is  said  to  have  "  emptied  Himself "  {kavTov  eKevtode), 
taking  the  form  of  a  servant.  The  question  is.  What  does 
this  emptying  include  ?  Did  tlie  Son  of  God — the  Eternal 
Word — literally  ky  aside  His  Divine  glory,  and,  ceasing  to  be 
in  the  form  of  God,  enter  by  human  birth  into  the  conditions 
of  earthly  poverty  and  weakness  ?  Or,  if  He  did  not,  what 
is  the  import  of  this  remarkable  phrase  ?  The  Kenotic 
theories — represented  in  Germany  by  a  long  list  of  honoured 
names  2  —  answer  the  former  question  in  the  affirmative. 
Godet  among  French  writers  advocates  the  same  view.  The 
Divine  Logos,  he  thinks,  literally  laid  aside  His  Divine 
attributes  at  the  Incarnation,  and  entered  the  sphere  of  the 

1  1  John  iv.  16. 

'  E.g.  Thomasius,  Gess,  Ebrard,  Kabnis,  Liithardt,  etc. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      281 

finite  as  an  unconscious  babe.^     The  object  of  these  theories, 
of  course,  is  to  secure  the  reality  of  Christ's  humanity,  and 
the  fact  of  a  true  human  development,  which  seemed  imperilled 
by   the   older    view.      Notwithstanding,   however,   the   wide  ^ 
support  they  have  received,  I  cannot  think  that  these  theories  Central 
will  ever  permanently  commend  themselves  to  the  iudcrment   W^'^^y^f 

i^  J  0      a  ^^^j^  theories. 

of  the  Church.^  They  seem  to  me — to  come  to  the  heart  of 
the  matter  at  once — to  involve  an  impossibility,  inasmuch  as 
they  ask  us  to  believe  in  the  temporary  suspension  of  the 
consciousness,  and  the  cessation  from  all  Divine  functions,  of 
one  of  the  Persons  of  the  Godhead  ?  How  does  this  consist 
with  Scripture  ?  Are  we  not  told  of  the  Son,  in  particular, 
not  only  that  by  Him  all  things  were  created,  but  that  in 
Him  all  things  consist — that  He  upholdeth  all  things  by  the 
word  of  His  power  ?  Is  this  relation  to  the  universe  not  an 
essential  one  ?  and  does  the  Kenotic  theory  not  reduce  it  to 
one  wholly  unessential  and  contingent  ?  I  cannot  therefore 
accept  this  theory,  nor  do  I  think  that  the  reality  of  the 
Incarnation  requires  it.  I  might  appeal  here  to  the  analogy 
of  nature.  There  is  an  immanent  presence  of  God  in  nature, 
but  there  is  also  a  transcendent  existence  of  God  beyond 
nature.  So  the  Divine  Sen  took  upon  Him  our  nature  with 
its  human  limits,  but  above  and  beyond  that,  if  we  may  so 
express  it,  was  the  vast  "over-soul"  of  His  Divine  conscious- 
ness. Even  human  psychology,  in  making  us  more  familiar 
than  we  were  with  the  idea  of  different  strata  of  consciousness 
even  in  the  same  personal  being,  gives  us  a  hint  which 
need  not  be  lost.  The  sense  of  the  apostle's  words  seems 
sufficiently  met  by  the  lowly  form  of  Christ's  earthly  mani- 
festation— "  despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  sorrows, 
and  acquainted  with  grief."  ^ 

The  result  of  our  inquiry  has  not  been  to  overthrow  the 

1  Cf.  Conwientary  on  John,  i.  14.  Presseiise  and  Gretillat  are  other  French 
Kenoticists. 

^  For  an  able  discussion  of  Kenotic  theories  see  Professor  Bruce's  Humiliation 
of  Christ,  Lecture  IV.  (Cunningham  Lectures). 

'^  Isa.  liii.  3. 


282    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

Relation  of      Cliristological  decisions  of   the  early  Church,  but  rather   to 
preceding        impress  US  with  the   justice  and   tact  of   these  decisions  in 

discussion  ^ 

to  early  guarding    the   truth    against   opposite   errors.     Has    all    the 

Christoiogtcal  i^bour  and  earnestness  of  modern  investigation  on  this  pro- 

decisions.  ,       i        i  •  i  i    o       x     i 

Has  modern     found  subjcct,  then,  been  absolutely  without  result  ?     i  do 

thought  no       j^Qt  think  so.     One  remarkable  gain  has  already  been  adverted 

to  throw  on      to,  in  the  tendency  of  modern  speculation  to  draw  the  Divine 

Christoiogtcal  ^-^^  ^hc  human  nearer  together,  and  to  emphasise,  if  not  their 

Advlnce's  in    identity,  at  least  their  kindredness,  and  the  capacity  of  the 

modern  human  to  reccivc  the  Divine.^     But  many  lights  and  sugges- 

sj)ecu  a  ton.      ^j^Qj^g   havc  been  afforded  in   the  treatment  of   this  subject, 

from  Schleiermacher  downwards,  which  in  any  attempt  at  a 

constructive  view  must  always  be  of  great  value.     This  will 

perhaps  become  apparent  if,  in  closing  this  survey,  I  notice 

an  objection  which   is   sometimes  urged  against  the  view  of 

the    Incarnation    here    presented — the    ordinary,    and    as    I 

believe    the   scriptural  one — namely,   that   in   affirming   the 

incarnation  of  a  heavenly  and  pre-existent  Person  we  seem 

to  impinge  on  the  reality,  or  at  least  the  integrity,  of  the 

Question         human   nature   which    Christ   bore.      The   question   is,  Had 

1  J       J.,     Christ's  human  nature  an  independent  Personality  of  its  own, 

tmpersonality  r  j  ^ 

of  Christ's  or  was  the  Divine  the  only  Personality  ?  To  guard  against 
humanity,  Nestoriau  error,  or  the  assumption  of  two  persons  in  Christ, 
the  early  Church,  it  will  be  remembered,  affirmed  what  is 
called  the  "  impersonality "  of  the  human  nature  of  Christ, 
and,  as  might  appear,  with  perfect  reason  on  the  principles 
of  the  Logos  Christology.2  But  this  very  consequence  is 
made  in  modern  times  the  ground  of  an  objection  to  that 
Christology,  which,  it  is  said,  while  maintaining  the  Divinity, 
impairs  the  integrity  of  the  humanity,  of  the  Eedeemer.     For 

^  In  a  practical  respect  the  chief  gain  is  that  we  begin  with  the  earthly  side 
of  Christ's  humanity,  and  rise  to  the  recognition  of  His  Divinity  ;  more  stress 
is  laid  on  the  humanity  which  manifests  the  Divinity  than  formerly.  See 
Kaftan's  Brauchen  wir  ein  neues  Dogma?  p.  54. 

^  Cf.  on  this  subject  of  the  Anhypostasia,  as  it  is  called,  Schaff's  Creedfi  oj 
Christendom,  pp.  32,  33  ;  Dorner's  System  of  Doctrine,  iii.  p.  254  (Eng.  trans.); 
Bruce's  Humiliation  of  Christ,  pp.  427-430. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST.      283 

(1)  If  Christ's  human  nature  had  no  independent  Personality,  objections  to 
was  not  His  human  nature  thereby  mutilated?  and  (2)  \ithe older 

TJtCIV  CIS 

it  is  the  Divine  Personality  that  is  the  subject — the  Ego — affecting  the 
does  not  this  detract  on  the  other  side  from  the  truth  of  His  i^^i^g^^^y  (^^d 
humanity  ?     For  this  reason,  some  are  disposed  to  grant  that  Zlri^t'Y 
Christ's  humanity  also  must  be  conceived  of  as  personal,  and  humanity. 
that  the  Incarnation  must  be  thought  of,  with  Eothe,  as  the 
union  both    of   person  and  of   nature.       Let   us  see  how  it 
stands  with  this  difficulty  on  closer  inspection,  and  from  what 
point  of  view  it  can  best  be  obviated. 

1.  It    would    be    well    if    the    objector    to    the    ordinary  Examination 
ecclesiastical   view — he  who   admits    in    any   sense   an    In-  ^f*^^^^ 

''  objections : 

carnation — would  think  out  carefully  what  is  implied  in  the  i.  Can  we 
attribution  of  an  independent  Personality  to  Christ's  human  ^^^^^^^^^^ «'' 

independent 

nature.     On  both   sides   there   will  be   agreement   that   the  personality 
unity  of  the  Person  must  in  some  form  be  maintained.     You  *^  ^^^^ 
cannot  have  two  Egos  in  Christ's  one  Divine-human  Person  Christ? 
— however  close  the  relation  between  them.     If  the  human 
Ego  retains  in  any  measure  its  distinction  from  the  Divine, 
then  we  have  not  an  Incarnation,  but  a  Nestorian  relation  of 
persons.     If,  therefore,  an  independent  human  Ego  is  to  be 
assumed,  it  must  be  supposed  to  be  &o  incorporated  with  the 
Divine  Ego — so  lost  in  it,  so  interpenetrated  by  it,  so  absorbed 
in  it — that  all  sense  of  separate  identity  is  parted  with ;  ^ 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Divine  Ego  so  transfuses  itself 
into  the  human,  so  limits  and  conditions  itself,  so  becomes  the 
ruling  and  controlling  force  in  the  human  consciousness,  as 

^  This  was  Origen's  view  in  the  early  Church.  The  Logos,  he  thought,  united 
itself  with  an  unfallen  soul  in  the  pre-eiistent  state.  Cf.  Dt  Principiis,  Book  ii. 
chap.  vi.  :  "  But  since,  agreeably  to-  the  faculty  of  free-will,  variety  and 
diversity  characterised  tlie  individual  souls,  so  that  one  was  attached  with  a 
warmer  love  to  the  Author  of  its  being,  and  another  with  a  feebler  and  weaker 
regard,  that  soul,  .  .  .  inhering  froni  the  beginning  of  the  creation,  and  after- 
wards, inseparably  and  indissolubly  in  Him,  as  being  the  Wisdom  and  Word  of 
God,  and  the  Truth  and  the  true  Light,  and  receiving  Him  wholly,  and  passing 
into  His  light  and  splendour,  was  made  with  Him  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  one 
Spirit,  according  to  the  promise  of  the  apostle  to  those  who  ought  to  imitate  it, 
that  'he  who  is  joined  to  the  Lord  is  one  spirit'  (1  Cor.  vi.  17).  .  .  .  Neither 
was  it  opposed  to  the  nature  of  that  soul,  as  a  rational  existence,  to  receive 


284   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

itself  practically  to  become  human.  There  is  perhaps  no 
obvious  objection  to  this  view,  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  is 
difficult  to  see  what  is  gained  by  it.  The  human  Ego,  as  a 
distinct  Ego,  is  as  entirely  lost  sight  of — is  as  completely 
taken  up  and  merged  into  the  Divine — as  on  the  other 
supposition.  For  it  is  of  the  essence  of  the  true  view  of 
Incarnation  that  the  bond  of  personal  identity  should  remain 
unbroken  between  the  Son  who  shared  th«  glory  of  the  Father 
in  eternity,  and  the  human  Christ  who  prayed,  "  0  Father, 
glorify  thou  Me  with  Thine  own  self  with  the  glory  which  I 
had  with  Thee  before  the  world  was."  ^ 
2.  Does  the  2.  The  other  side  of  the  objection — If   it  is  the  Divine 

jjtmne  Personality  which  is  the  subiect,  does  not  this  detract  from 

Personality  -^  . 

detract  from     the  truth  of  the  human  nature,  give  us  only  an  unreal  and 
the  reality  of  (^QJ^gtic  Christ  ? — raiscs  a  much  deeper  question — that,  namely, 

the  human 

nature?  of  the  Original  relation  of  the  Divine  Logos  to  humanity.     If 

Possible  Q.Q(j  ^^^  become  man,  it  can  -only  be  on  the  presupposition  of 

solution  of  this  .    .  .  ... 

question  in      an  Original  relation  between  God  and  humanity,  m  virtue  of 
the  original     which  there  is  an  essential  kindredness  and  bond  of  connection 

relation  of  the  mi.-Ti'Ti-  lo-^ 

Divine  Lo^os  "Gtween  them.  This  is  already  implied  m  the  bcripture 
to  humanity,  doctrinc  of  man  made  in  the  image  of  God,  but  it  receives  a 
deeper  interpretation  through  the  doctrine  of  the  Logos.^ 
When  it  is  objeoted  that  the  Divine  Logos,  even  though 
entering  into  the  nature  and  conditions  and  limitations  of 
humanity,  is  not  truly  a  human  Person,  the  question  is  to  be 
asked.  Is  the  relation  between  Personality  in  the  Logos  and 
that  in  man  one  of  contrariety,  or  is  not  Personality  in  the 

God,  into  whom,  as  stated  above,  as  into  the  Word  and  the  Wisdom  and  the 
Truth,  it  had  already  wholly  entered.  And  therefore  deservedly  is  it  also 
called,  along  with  the  flesh  which  it  had  assumed,  the  Son  of  God,  and  the 
Power  of  God,  the  Christ,  and  the  Wisdom  of  God,  either  because  it  was  wholly 
in  the  Son  of  God,  or  because  it  received  the  Son  of  God  wholly  into  itself." — 
Ante-Nicene  Library  trans.  Origen's  view  may  be  compared  with  Rothe's, 
only  that  Rothe  does  not  allow  a  separate  personality  in  the  Logos. 
^  John  xvii.  5. 

^  An  original  relation  of  the  Logos  to  humanity  on  the  ground  of  the  Incarna- 
tion, is  already  implied  in  the  theology  of  Irenseus,  Clement,  and  Origen  (cf. 
Dorner's  History)  ;  is  made  prominent  in  recent  Christological  discussions  in 
Germany  ;  was  the  view  of  Maurice,  etc. 


THE  INCARNATION  OF  GOD  IN  CHRIST,      285 

Logos  rather  the  truth  of  that  which  we  find  in  humanity  ? 
Is  man's  personality  in  every  case  not  grounded  in  that  of 
the  Logos  ?  Is  He  not  the  light  and  life  of  all  men,  even 
in  a  natural  respect — the  light  of  intelligence,  of  conscience, 
-pf  spirit  ?  But  if  man's  personality  is  thus  grounded  in  the 
Logos,  is  there  a  difference  of  kind  between  them,  or  not 
rather  one  of  condition  ?  Is  there  not  a  human  side  in  the 
Logos,  and  a  Divine  side  in  man  ?  and  is  not  this  the  truth 
we  have  to  conserve  in  such  theories  as  Beyschlag's  and 
Hegel's.  There  is  no  denial,  therefore,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  This  doctrine 
Incarnation,  rightly  understood,  of  a  true  human  Personality  ^^^^  ^"^  ^^'^^ 

.  .  a  true  human 

m  Christ, — what  is  denied  is  that  the  Personality  of  the  Divine  personality  in 
Son  cannot  also  become  in  the  incarnate  condition  a  truly  <^^^^'"^,  but 
human  one.     A  further  question  would  be,  whether  the  '^^^^  identity  tvith 
of  the  human  race  did  not  include  from  the  first  the  idea  of  an  the  Divine. 
Incarnation,  with  the  Son  Himself  as  Head — a  subject  which 
will  be  dealt  with  in  the  next  Lecture. 

I  remark  in  a  word,  in  closing,  that  we  do  not  do  justice  to  The  /near- 
this  stupendous  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  if  we  neglect  to  look  '^'^^'^^/^  ^^ 

^  *=*  studied  in  the 

at  it  in  the  light  of  its  revealed  ends.     The  advantage  of  light  of  its 

taking  the  doctrine  in  this  way  is,  that  we  see  at  a  glance  the  ^^^^^^-^^  ^«^•^• 

inadequacy  of  all  lower  theories  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  if 

the  ends   intended  to   be   accomplished   by  His   appearance 

were  to  be  attained  ?     If  Christ  came  to  do  only  the  work  of 

a  prophet,  or  of   a  philanthropist,  or  of   a  teacher  of  ethical 

truth,  I  admit  that  the  Incarnation  would  shrivel  up  into  an 

absurdity.      The  means  would  be  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 

ends.     But  who  will  say  this  of  the  actual  ends  for  which 

the  Son  of  God  came  into  the  world  ?     Who  will  affirm  that 

if    a    world   was    to  be   redeemed   from   sin   and   guilt,  and 

spiritual  bondage — to  be  renewed,  sanctified,  and  brought  into 

the  fellowship  of  life  with  God  —  anyone  less  than  Divine 

was   adequate   to   the   task  ?  ^      Here,   again,   the   Christian 

^  Even  Hartmanii  recognises  this.  "If  one  sees  in  Jesus,"  he  says,  "only 
the  son  of  the  carpenter  Joseph  and  of  his  wife  Mary,  this  Jesus  and  His  death 
can  as  little  redeem  me  from  my  sins  as,  say,  Bismarck  can  do  it,"  etc.— Selbd- 
zersetzung,  p.  92. 


286    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

view  is  in  keeping  with  itself.  There  is  a  proportion  between 
the  Incarnation  and  the  ends  sought  to  be  accomplished  by 
it.  The  denial  of  the  Incarnation,  of  necessity  carries  with  it 
a  lowering  of  the  view  of  the  work  Christ  came  to  do  for 
men.  He,  on  the  other  hand,  who  believes  in  that  work — 
who  feels  the  need  of  it — much  more  who  has  experienced 
the  Eedeeming  power  of  it  in  his  own  heart — will  not  doubt 
that  He  who  has  brought  this  salvation  to  him  is  none  other 
than  the  "  Strong  Son  of  God — Immortal  Love."  ^ 

^  In  Memoriam. 


APPENDIX    TO    LECTUEE    VI. 


THE    SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS    OF    JESUS. 

It  is  a  significant  circumstance  that,  in  recent  years,  interest  Modem 
has  concentrated  itself  more  and  more   on   the  question  of  "^^^=^^-^^  "^ 

.     ,  .  this  question, 

Christ  s  self-consciousness  —  that  is,  on  what  He  thought 
and  felt  about  Himself,  and  on  how  He  arrived  at  these  con- 
victions. The  fact  is  an  illustration  of  the  saying  of  Godet, 
quoted  in  the  Lecture,  that  in  the  last  instance  Christianity 
rests  on  Christ's  witness  to  Himself.  I  have  noted  below 
some  of  the  chief  books  which  bear  upon  this  subject,^  and 
may  refer  here  to  a  few  of  their  results,  only  venturing  very 
sparingly  upon  criticism. 

The    general   subject    is   the   origin   and    development   qI  Mam  points 
Christ's   Messianic  consciousness,   as   that    may   be   deduced  ^^•^"'•^•^^^• 
from   the  Gospels,  and  the  points  chiefly  discussed  are  the 
following : — 

1.  What  was  the  fundamental  fact  in  Christ's  Messianic  i.  Funda- 
consciousness   out  of   which    the  other   elements   Rrew — the  ^^'^^^^A'^ 

°  in  Christ  s 

consciousness. 
1    Beyschlag's  Das  Leben  Jesu,  i.   pp.  171-244  —  ("Das  Selbstbewiisstsein 

Jesu,"  "Der  Messianische  Beruf,"  etc.).     1885. 
Gess's  ChrisH  Person  und  Werk,  nach  Christi  Selbstzeugniss,  etc.,  vol.  i. 

(1870). 
Hermann  Schmidt  on  "  Bildiing  und  Gehalt  des  Messianischen  Bewusst- 

seins  Jesu,"  in  Studien  und  Kritiken  (1889). 
Grau's  Das  Selhstbewusstsein  Jesu  (1887). 
Baldensperger's  Das  Selbstbeivusstsein  Jesu  im  Licht  der  Messianischen 

Hoffnungen  seiner  Zeit  (1888,  2nd  ed.  1892). 
Wendt's  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  vol.  ii.  (1890). 
Stanton's  The  Jewish  and  Christian  Messiah  (1886). 
Lives  of  Christ,  by  Weiss,  Keim,  Hase,  etc. 
Biblical  Theology  of  Xew  Testament, — Weiss,  Reuss,  etc. 


288    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

consciousness  of  a  perfect  religious  relation  to  the  Father 
(Beyschlag,  Weiss,  Wendt,  etc.),  or,  behind  this,  of  sinlessness  ? 
(Baldensperger). 

2.  When  did        2.  When  did  Christ  clearly  realise  His  Messianic  calling  ? 
Christ  realise  _^^  ^^^  Baptism  ?  (Bevschlag,  Wendt,  Baldensperger,  etc.). 

His  Messianic  jt  v       ./  o  x      o  / 

calling?  Or  earlier  ?  (Neander,  Hase,  Weiss,  etc.).     Or  not  till  a  later 

period  ?  (Renan,  Strauss,  Schenkel,  etc.). 

3.  Was  3.  Was  Christ's  "  plan ""  one  and   the  same   throughout  ? 
Christ's          (Neander,  Schmidt,  etc.).     Or,  did  Christ's  views  change  with 

''^  plan  "  one 

and  the  same    the   coursc    of    cvcnts  ?   (Bcyschlag,   Schenkel,   Hase,   Keim, 
throughout?     Baldensperger,  etc.).     Was   it,   ajj.,  only  gradually  that   He 

realised    the    necessity    of    His    death  ?    (Beyschlag,    Weiss, 

Baldensperger,  Wendt,  etc.). 

4.  Import  and      4.  The  import  and  origin  of  the  titles  "  Son  of  Man  "  and 
origin  of  titles  «  g^^^  ^j  q^..     j)^^^  ^j^  former  represent  Christ  as  "weak, 

"  Son  of  ^ 

Man "  and      crcaturcly  man  "  ?  (Holsten,.  Wendt).      Or  as  "  ideal,  typical 
''Son  of         man"?   (Neander,   Reuss,    Beyschlag,   etc.).       Or    simply   as 
Messiah  ?  (Baldensperger).      Was   it   borrowed  from   Daniel 
(as  most  hold),  and  to  what  extent  was  it  a  popular,  well- 
known  title  for  Messiah  ?     (Against  this.  Matt.  xvi.  1 3.) 

This  title  surely  expresses  the  two  ideas  that  Christ  at  once 
belongs  to  the  race  of  humanity,  and  sustains  a  peculiar  and 
unique  relation  to  it.  It  may  be  held  to  denote  Christ's 
consciousness  that  He  is  true  and  perfect  Man,  that  He 
sustains  an  universal  relation  to  the  race,  and  that  He  is  the 
Messiah. 

As  respects  the  second  title,  does  it  denote  only  an  ethical 
and  religious  relation,  (so  most  of  the  above),  or  has  it  also 
any  metaphysical  (or  as  I  prefer  to  say,  transcendental) 
implication  ?  (Beyschlag,  Reuss,  Schmidt,  etc.).  Is  it  a  title 
which  Christ  shares  with  others  (in  part  Wendt),  or  uses  in 
a  peculiar  and  exceptional  sense  of  Himself  ?  (Beyschlag, 
Reuss,  Weiss,  etc.). 
Vieivs  oj  It  will  help  the  understanding  of  the  subject  if  I  sketch  a 

wri'ters.  ^^^^^^    more   fully   the    views    of    some   of    the   above-named 

writers, 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS         289 

Beyschlag's  view  does  not  hang  well  together.  It  begins  Beyschiag 
with  a  Christ  who  is  unique  among  men — sinless,  the  Son  of 
God  in  an  absolute  sense,  whose  nature  is  grounded  in 
eternity,  who  works  miracles,  is  raised  from  the  dead,  is 
translated  into  heavenly  power  and  glory,  who  has  Godhead, 
who  demands  worship ;  but  who  grows  only  gradually  into 
the  consciousness  of  His  Messiahship,  is  limited  in  nature 
and  gifts,  makes  mistakes,  errs  in  His  expectations,  etc. 
Beyschlag's  opinions,  however,  contain  many  notable  elements. 
On  the  general  subject,  he  says,  "  First  in  a  Personality  in 
which  the  Divine  nature  translates  itself  so  perfectly  into  the 
human  that  it  can  be  said  '  Who  sees  Me,  sees  the  Father,' 
can  the  Divine  Eevelation  perfect  itself."  ^  The  God-manhood 
is  "  the  wonder  of  all  wonders."  ^  He  separates  himself  from 
the  Church  doctrine,  and  declares  himself  in  favour  of  an 
"  anthropocentric "  Christology,  though  only  on  the  ground, 
as  he  explains  it,  of  "  a  theocentric  anthropology,"  that  is,  of 
the  view  that  it  is  the  image  of  God  which  is  the  essential 
thing  in  the  nature  of  man.^  He  rejects  Strauss's  view,  that 
the  sinlessness  of  Jesus  is  "  the  death  of  all  true  humanity," 
and  contends  that  "  the  Christ  of  faith  "  is  no  impossibility.* 
The  history  of  the  childhood  of  Jesus,  at  the  same  time,  he 
resolves  into  poetry,  and  thinks  the  birth  from  a  virgin  not 
essential  to  sinlessness,  or  to  a  new  beginning  of  humanity.^ 
On  the  self-consciousness  of  Jesus,  he  holds  that  the  in- 
dividuality of  Jesus  had  its  limitations,  but  in  respect  of  the 
consciousness  of  a  Divine  Sonship  was  clear  and  absolute. 
"  It  is  not  the  old  Israeli tish  religious  consciousness  which  lives 
in  Jesus  in  such  all-determining  fashion,  but  a  new,  till  then 
in  the  world  unheard  of  and  perfect  consciousness,  which  not 
only  is  still  unsurpassed  but  in  its  inwardness  and  clearness 
never  can  be  surpassed."  ^  Its  central  point  is  the  conscious- 
ness of  God  as  Father,  to  which  the  name  "  Son  "  corresponds. 

1  Lehen  Jesu,  i.  p.  39.  ^  I^^d.  i.  p.  39. 

3  Ibid.  i.  p.  46.  *  Ibid.  i.  pp.  50,  56. 

=  Ibid.  i.  pp.  146,  161,  162.  '  Ibid.  i.  p.  175. 

19 


290    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

"  Sonship  to  God  (Gottessohnschaft)  is  the  peculiar  expression 
of  the  self -consciousness  of  Jesus."  ^  This  name  represents 
the  highest  aim,  or  ideal,  for  all  men,  but  still  there  is  a 
singularity  in  its  application  to  Jesus.^  God  was  His  Father 
in  a  special  sense.  "  While  He  calls  God  not  merely  *'  His ' 
Father,  but  names  Him  also  'the'  Father  absolutely,  and 
teaches  His  disciples  to  pray  '  our  Father  in  heaven,'  He  yet 
never  includes  Himself  with  them  under  an  '  our  Father,'  but 
always  says, '  My  Father '  or  *  your  Father/  thus  distinguishing 
His  relation  from  theirs."  ^  This  does  not  mean  "  that  He  is 
the  first  who  has  recognised  and  realised  this  destination  to 
a  Divine  Sonship."  It  means  that  while  all  others  become 
sons  of  God  through  a  change  of  disposition — through  con- 
version, the  new  birth,  etc. — and  not  through  themselves, 
but  only  through  Him  —  His  relation  to  the  Father  is 
original,  perfect,  absolute,  so  that  He  knows  Himself  to  be 
the  object  of  God's  love  absolutely.*  In  this  is  involved 
His  sinlessness.^  This  is  a  necessary  pre  -  supposition 
of  Christian  faith — -the  religious,  moral  absoluteness  of 
Jesus,  and  the  history  confirms  it.^  If  He  has  not  this 
absolute  greatness.  He  is  no  Saviour  of  others,  but  stands 
in  need  of  salvation  Himself.*^  This  is  the  "  Godhead "  of 
Jesus.  "  It  is  never  a  relative  greatness,  however  exalted 
and  super  -  excellent  it  may  be,  but  the  absolute  which 
is  the  appearance  of  Godhead  in  humanity;  the  religiously 
and  morally  perfect,  and  this  alone,  is  in  the  domain  of  the 
human,  the  truly  Divine,  in  which  we  can  believe,  and  which 
admits  of  and  demands  worship."  ^  But  this  religious-moral 
Godhead  of  Christ  does  not  stand  in  opposition  to  a  meta- 
physical. A  real  being  of  God  in  Him  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  the  consciousness  of  Christ,  that  which  He  expresses  in 
the  word,  "  I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  Me ; "  so 
that  in  Him  in  whom  the  eternal  love  has  perfectly  appeared 

^  Leben  Jesu,  i.  p.  176.                             ^  jf^i^  j_  p^  ^7^^ 

3  Ibid.  i.  p.  178.  4  /i,-^_  I  p_  179 

5  Ibid.  i.  p.  181.  6  75^-^^  I  p  19Q 

7  Ibid.  i.  p.  190.  8  Ibid.  i.  p.  191. 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS,        291 

an  essential  Godhead  also  may  be  recognised.^  The  passages 
in  John  which  seem  to  imply  personal  pre  -  existence, 
Beyschlag  explains  away  by  predestination,  etc.  On  the 
Messianic  calling,  he  finds  the  birth-moment  of  the  Messianic 
consciousness  of  Jesus  in  the  baptism.^  He  reviews  the 
opinions  of  those  who  would  put  it  earlier  or  later,  and  finds 
them  untenable.^  But  though  Christ  from  this  moment  knew 
Himself  to  be  the  Messiah,  He  did  not  know  what  the  course 
of  His  Messianic  life  was  to  be.*  He  had  no  foreseen  plan. 
"  The  public  life  of  Jesus  began  under  quite  other  stars  than 
the  expectation  of  the  death  of  the  Cross."  ^  Beyschlag 
distinguishes  three  stages  in  the  development  of  Christ's 
ideas :  ^ — 

1.  A  stage  when  the  kingdom  is  conceived  of  as  near — 
standing  at  the  door  (early  ministry  in  John). 

2.  Jesus  realises  that  His  people  are  anything  but  ready 
for  the  kingdom ;  and  sees  that  its  triumph  will  involve  a 
long  protracted  development  (Galilean  ministry). 

3.  He  foresees  His  death,  and  the  triumph  of  the  kingdom 
is  now  transported  into  the  future,  in  connection  with  a 
second  advent.  The  name  "  Son  of  Man,"  Beyschlag  connects 
with  the  Messianic  dignity  (from  Daniel) ;  but  holds  that 
Christ  knew  and  felt  Himself  also  as  "  the  heavenly,  arche- 
typal (urbildlich)  man."  ^  The  reality  of  the  resurrection  is 
strongly  defended,  and  the  following  explanation  is  given  of 
the  ascension.  "  What,  then,  was  the  original  thought  of  the 
ascent  to  heaven  ?  What  else  can  it  have  been  than  that  of 
the  elevation  of  Jesus  above  the  limits  of  the  earthly  life,  of 
His  translation  into  another,  supramundane,  Divine  form  of 
existence, — in  a  word,  of  His  exaltation  or  glorification."  ^ 

H.  Schmidt's  article  in  the  Studien  und  Kritikeii,  on  "  The  H.  SchmidL 
Formation   and  Content   of   the   Messianic  Consciousness   of 
Jesus,"  is  an  acute  criticism  of  the  views  of  Beyschlag  and 

^  Leben  Jesu,  i.  p.  191.  ^  Ibid.  i.  p.  213. 

^  Ibid,  i,  pp.  216,  217.  ^  Ibid.  i.  p.  289. 

^  Ibid.  i.  p.  231.  «  Ibid.  i.  p.  233-236. 

7  Ibid.  i.  p.  241.  s  Ibid.  i.  p.  448. 


292    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

Weiss,  and  also  an  able  independent  treatment  of  the  subject. 
He  inquires  "  first  as  to  the  time  in  which  Jesus  came  to  the 
consciousness  of  His  Messianic  destination,  and  then  what 
moments  His  Messianic  consciousness  comprehended,  and 
what  measure  of  clearness  there  was  already  present  in  Him 
as  to  the  nature  of  His  kingdom."  ^  As  against  Weiss,  who 
seeks  to  lead  from  the  consciousness  of  Christ's  unique  Son- 
relationship  to  the  consciousness  of  His  Messiahship  by  way 
of  inference,  He  argues  very  powerfully  for  a  peculiarity  in 
the  self-consciousness  of  Jesus  other  than  the  mere  sense  of  a 
perfect  religious  relation  to  the  Father.^  Sonship  implies  a 
knowledge  of  the  thoughts  and  love  of  God  to  the  individual, 
not  of  God's  thoughts  or  purposes  for  the  world.  On  the 
other  hand — this  against  Beyschlag — the  consciousness  of  a 
unique  and  sinless  Sonship  could  not  exist  without  the  idea 
of  a  unique  calling  connected  therewith.^  For  Jesus  to  know 
that  He  was  the  only  sinless  Being  in  humanity,  was  already 
to  know  that  He  had  a  calling  beyond  that  of  a  Nazarene 
carpenter.  He  strongly  presses  the  point  that  the  appearance 
of  a  perfectly  sinless  Being  in  the  empirical  state  of  the  race 
is  scarcely  comprehensible  by  us  "  without  the  background 
of  a  distinction  of  essence " ;  *  and  shows  that  Beyschlag's 
admission  that  the  peculiarity  of  Christ's  Person,  as  the 
absolute  moral  ideal,  involves  a  permanent  distinction  between 
Him  and  others,  and  rests  on  a  metaphysical  background,  is 
fatal  to  his  "  anthropocentric "  view,  for  it  means  that  the 
centre  of  Christ's  Person  is  in  the  suprahuman — the  Divine.^ 
He  examines  the  alleged  traces  of  growth  in  the  Messianic 
consciousness  of  Jesus  during  His  public  ministry,  and 
demonstrates  how  weak  are  the  grounds  on  which  this  view 
rests.^  He  holds  it  to  have  been  inconceivable  that  Jesus 
should  have  been  in  unclearness  in  regard  to,  at  least,  "  the 
constitutive   moments"   of    His    kingdom,   and    therefore   in 

^  mud.  vnd  Krit.  1889,  p.  425.  2  /j^^^  i889,  p.  432. 

3  Ibid.  1889,  p.  433.  ^  Ibid.  1889,  p.  499. 

^  Ibid.  1889,  p.  435.  6  /^{d  1889,  pp.  448-451. 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS.        293 

regard  to  His  death.^  He  combats  Weiss's  view  that  Jesus 
thought  at  first  only  of  Israel,  not  of  an  universal  kingdom.^ 
"  If  at  the  entrance  on  His  Messianic  course,  already  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  were  offered  to 
Him,  one  would  think  He  must  have  had  a  wide  glimpse 
into  this  world."  ^  The  whole  essay  deserves  careful  con- 
sideration. 

Another  critic  of  current  theories  is  Grau,  who  thus  defines  Grau. 
the  subject  in  his  preface.      "The  capital  question  in   this 
domain,"  he  says,  is,  "  What  Jesus  has  thought  about  Himself, 
His  vocation,  and  the  significance  of  His  Person  ? "     Another 
form   of  the  question  is,  "  How  is  the  Christ  of  the  Mcene 
Creed  related  to   the   Christ    of    the    New  Testament,  and 
specially  to  the  Christ  of  the  Synoptics "  ?  *     He  criticises 
very  severely  the  view  of  H.  Schultz,  in  his  work  on   The 
Godhead    of   Christ,   but    along    with    this,    the    theories    of 
Beyschlag,  etc.     He  quotes  Schultz's  criticism  on  the  Socinian 
writers,    that    they    ascribed    "  a    become    Godhead "    (eine 
gewordene  Gottheit)  to  Christ,  and  asks  wherein  their  view 
differed  from  his  own,  as  expressed  in  the  following  passage : — 
"  If  we  teach  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  it  is  that  we  are  certain 
that   Jesus,  after  He   has  completed  His  work,  has   become 
perfectly   one   with   the   Christ-idea   of   God.  ...  God   has 
made  Him  Lord  and  Christ.     And  so  He  has  also  received,  as 
His  personal  attribute,  the  Godhead  which  is  proper  to  the 
Christ.      The  Christ  is  for  us  God.     Jesus  has  become  God  in 
becoming  Christ."  ^     The  old  view,  Grau  remarks,  was  that 
"  God   became   man   in    Jesus   Christ " ;   now    the   truth    of 
salvation   is    expressed   by  Schultz   and  his   friends   in   the 
proposition,  "  the  man  Jesus  Christ  has  become  God."     "  This 
Godhead,"  he  says,  "  can  be  no  '  true '  Godhead,  because  it  is 
one  that  has  become.      So,  finally,  is  this  whole  representation 
nothing  else  than  what  it  was  with   the  Socinians — a  misuse 

1  Stud,  und  KriL  1889,  p.  472.  ^  Ibid.  1889,  p.  490. 

»  Ibid.  1889,  p.  490. 

*  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jem,  Preface,  pp.  5,  9.  ^  Ibid.  Preface,  p.  12. 


294   CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

of  the  name  of  God."  ^     Grau's  own  book,  however,  though  it 
goes   on   original  lines,  can    hardly   be   recommended    as    a 
satisfactory  contribution  to  the  subject.     He  is  often  far  from 
concise  or  clear  in  his  statements,  and  somewhat  unmethodical 
in  his  treatment.     He  does  not  systematically  investigate  the 
question    of    Christ's    self -consciousness  —  its    development, 
relation  to  current  ideas,  contents,  etc. — but   aims  rather   at 
proving  the  thesis  that  Christ  is  the  one  who  combines,  in 
His  Messianic  calling,  all  the  attributes  of   Jehovah  in  the 
Old  Testament.     An  elaborate  discussion  of  the  title  "  Son  of 
Man  "  sums  itself  up  in  the  following  remark  : — "  This  is  the 
(title)  Son  of  Man,  the  grasping  together  and  fulfilment  of  all 
the  offices  in  the  kingdom  of  God  which  lie  side  by  side  in 
the    Old    Testament,   and    complete   each    other  —  those    of 
shepherd,  physician,  priest  (but  also  of  sacrifice),  of  prophet, 
of  king,  and  judge."  ^ 
Balden-        A    much    more    thorough    discussion    of    the    subject    is 
Baldensperger's  recent  work  on  Tlu  Self- Consciousness  of  Jesus 
in  the  Light  of  the  Messianic  Hopes  of  His  Time.     Balden- 
sperger  will  have  nothing  to  say  to  the  "  ideal  man  "  theory — 
which  he  ridicules  as  an  attempt  to  carry  back  our  nineteenth 
century  ideas  into  a  period  to  which  they  were  quite  strange 
— and  treats  the  title  "  Son  of  Man  "  as  simply  a  designation 
for  the  Messiah.^     Yet  his  general  view  is  exposed  to  the 
same  objections  as  Beyschlag's.     He  makes  Jesus  first  arrive 
dimly  at  the  feeling  that  He  is  Messiah ;  then,  aroused  by 
John's  preaching  and  baptized.  He  reaches  religious  assurance 
(but  still  expecting,  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  time,  signs  in 
confirmation  of  His  call) ;  He  is  perplexed  (the  Temptation) ; 
after  this.  He  gains  clearness,  yet  not  such  absolute  certainty 
as  warrants  Him  in  publicly  proclaiming  Himself ;  ultimately 
He  attains  to  this  certainty,  and  at  the  same  time  sees  that 
His  victory  is  only  to  be  secured   through   death,  and  now 

1  Das  Selbstbewusstsein  Jesu,  Preface,  p.  13.     Cf.  the  criticism  of  Scliultz  in 
Frank's  Gewissheit,  p.  444  (Eng.  trans.). 

2  Ibid.  p.  215.  3  jiifi^  p,  137  .  2nd  ed.  p.  178. 


sperger. 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS.        295 

looks  for  the  completion  of  the  kingdom  of  God  through  the 
Parousia  and  last  judgment,  etc.^  It  is  obvious  how  much  of 
all  this  is  mere  theory,  without  corroboration  in  the  history. 
To  mention  only  one  objection — according  to  Baldensperger, 
Christ  did  not  announce  Himself  as  Messiah  till  the  time  of 
Peter's  confession,^  while  yet  the  name  "  Son  of  Man,"  which 
Baldensperger  takes  to  be  quite  equivalent  to  Messiah,  is  on 
His  lips  in  the  Gospels  from  the  first.^  To  avoid  this 
difficulty,  the  critic  has  no  alternative  but  arbitrarily  to 
change  the  order  of  the  sections,  and  to  assume  that  all  those 
incidents  in  which  this  name  occurs,  took  place  after  Peter's 
confession — a  violent  and  unwarrantable  hypothesis.*  It 
is  a  weakness  of  Baldensperger's  theory  that  it  fluctuates 
between  a  view,  according  to  which  Jesus  is  certain  of  Him- 
self, and  another  according  to  which  He  is  in  doubt  and 
perplexity.  Surely,  if  there  is  one  thing  clearer  in  the 
Gospels  than  another,  it  is  that  Christ  is  quite  certain  of 
Himself  from  the  beginning.  Not  to  build  on  this  expression 
"  Son  of  Man,"  can  we  listen  to  the  tone  of  authority  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  doubt  it  ?  The  hypothesis  of  a 
wavering  and  fluctuating  consciousness  totally  lacks  support 
in  the  gospel  narrative.  Had  Christ  any  doubt  of  Himself 
when  He  answered  John's  messengers,  when  He  chose  the 
twelve  apostles,  when  He  invited  the  labouring  and  heavy- 
laden  to  come  to  Him  for  rest,  when  He  said,  "  All  things  are 
delivered  to  Me  of  My  Father,"  etc.  ?  ^  One  thing  which 
Baldensperger  totally  fails  to  show  us  is,  what  amount  of 
reliance  we  are  to  place  in  self-beliefs  of  Christ,  arrived  at  by 
the  psychological  methods  he  indicates,  through  contact  with 
the  apocalyptic  notions  of  the  time,  etc.      In  other  words, 

^  See  Wendt's  criticism  in  his  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  pp.  307-310. 

2  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  p.  177  ;  2nd  ed.  p.  246. 

^  E.g.,  Matt.  xi.  6  ;  Mark  ii.  10,  28.  Cf.  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  p.  179  ;  2nd  ed. 
p.  249. 

*  They  are  to  be  regarded  as  * '  erratic  blocks  "  in  the  history,  Die  Lehre  Jesu, 
p.  180  ;  2nd  ed.  p.  252. 

5  Matt.  xi.  27,  28. 


296    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW. 

what  objective  value  have  these  beliefs  of  Christ  for  us — His 
beliefs,  e.g.^  about  His  atoning  death,  His  Parousia,  the  judg- 
ment of  the  world,  etc.  ?  Apparently  Baldensperger  attaches 
great  religious  weight  to  these  beliefs,  stripped  at  least  of 
their  immediate  form,  yet  it  is  not  easy  to  see  on  what 
grounds  he  can  do  so.  He  leaves  wholly  undetermined, 
besides,  Christ's  relation  to  His  miracles,  to  the  resurrec- 
tion, etc.,  without  which,  surely.  His  self-witness  is  not  set 
in  its  right  light. 
Weiidt.  I  would  refer,  finally,  to  the  important  discussion  of  these 

subjects  in  Wendt's  able  and  exhaustive  work  on  The  Doctrine 
of  Jesus.  In  this  book  Wendt  subjects  the  opinions  of 
Beyschlag  and  Baldensperger,  as  to  a  change  in  Christ's  views 
of  His  kingdom,  to  a  careful  criticism,  and  arrives  at  the 
conclusion  that,  in  all  essential  respects,  Christ's  views  of  the 
nature  and  coming  of  His  kingdom  as  a  present,  spiritual, 
gradually  developing  reality  on  earth,  remained  unchanged 
during  the  period  of  His  ministry.^  He  holds,  however,  that 
this  does  not  apply  to  the  details  of  the  development,  and 
grants,  in  agreement  with  the  others,  that  at  the  beginning 
of  His  work  Christ  had  no  thought  of  the  necessity  of 
His  death,  not  to  speak  of  so  speedy  and  frightful  a  death.^ 
The  difference  of  the  two  views,  therefore,  resolves  itself 
into  one  of  degree,  for  unless  it  is  held  that  Christ's 
death  had  no  essential  relation  to  the  nature  of  His  kingdom, 
and  the  manner  of  its  setting  up,  it  is  impossible  to  say  that 
ignorance  in  regard  to  that  event  did  not  affect  the  conception 
of  the  kingdom.  Wendt,  like  Beyschlag,  holds  that  the 
baptism  was  the  moment  of  the  miraculous  revelation  to 
Christ  of  His  Messiahship,  though  He  finds  this  prepared 
for  in  His  previous  consciousness  of  standing  in  an  inner 
communion  of  love  with  His  heavenly  Father.  "  In  this 
consciousness  was  given  the  psychological  pre-supposition  for 
His  gaining  the  certainty  of  His  own  Messiahship,  and  there- 
with, at  the  same  time,  obtaining  a  new,  higher  knowledge 

^  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  pp.  307-325.  2  /j^-^_  ^^  pp^  30g^  320. 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  JESUS.        297 

of  the  nature  and  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  But, 
previously  to  the  baptism,  this  conclusion  from  His  inner 
fellowship  with  God  as  Son  was  to  Him  still  not  clear."  ^ 
On  the  meaning  of  the  name  "  Son  of  Man,"  Wendt  argues 
strongly  for  the  view  that  this  title  designates  Christ  as  a 
weak,  creaturely  being — member,  Messiah  though  he  was,  of 
the  weak,  creaturely  race  of  humanity .^  This  view,  in  turn, 
is  ably  criticised  by  Baldensperger  in  the  work  noticed  above.^ 
It  cannot  be  carried  through  without  doing  violence  to  many 
passages  in  which  this  name  is  evidently  used  by  Christ  as  a 
title  of  dignity  ;  the  highest  Messianic  functions  being  claimed 
by  Him,  not  (as  Wendt's  argument  would  require),  despite  of 
His  being  Son  of  Man,  but  because  He  is  Son  of  Man.*  In 
general,  Wendt's  ideas  of  Jesus  and  His  teaching  are  very 
high.  "  My  interest  in  the  historical  treatment  of  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus,"  he  says,  "  arises  from  the  conviction  that  the 
historical  Jesus  Christ,  in  His  annunciation,  by  word  and 
deed,  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  was  the  perfect  Eevelation  of 
God  to  men " ;  and  again,  "  We  recognise  in  His  teaching 
concerning  the  kingdom  of  God  the  highest  and  perfect 
Eevelation  of  God."  ^  On  the  other  hand,  this  high  estimate 
is  limited  by  the  admission  that  on  everything  but  the  one 
peculiar  point  of  His  own  mission — the  founding  of  the 
kingdom  of  God — Jesus  simply  occupied  the  standpoint,  and 
used  the  language  of  His  contemporaries.  His  views  of  the 
natural  world — e.g.  of  the  Old  Testament,  of  angels  and  devils, 
of  the  future  world,  etc. — were  simply  those  of  His  age,  and 

1  Die  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  p.  316.  2  jy^cl.  ii.  pp.  442,  443. 

3  Ibid.  ii.  2nd  ed.  p.  182,  etc.  ^  Mark  ii.  28  ;  John  v.  27,  etc. 

^  Preface  to  recent  Eng.  trans,  of  Die  Lehre  Jesu.  Dr.  Wendt,  however,  does 
not  allow  anything  higher  than  an  ethical  Sonship  to  Jesus,  identical  in  kind 
with  that  enjoyed  by  all  the  other  members  of  the  kingdom  of  God— "viz.:  a 
fellowship  of  love  with  God,  in  which  God  as  the  Father  bestows  His  eternal 
salvation,  and  man  as  Son  trustfully  and  obediently  appropriates  and  follows 
the  will  of  God  ;  only  that  Jesus  knows  that  this  relation  of  Sonship  to  God  is 
realised  in  Himself  in  unique  perfection,  and  on  this  account  regards  Himself 
as  the  Son  of  God  x«r'  i^ox^v."—Y.  453.  He  expressly  denies  to  Jesus  pre- 
existence,  or  a  transcendental  mode  of  being,  and  explains  away  the  sayings  in 
John  which  seem  to  teach  such  higher  existence.— Pp.  453-476. 


298    CENTRAL  ASSERTION  OF  CHRISTIAN  VIEW, 

liable  to  all  the  error  and  imperfection  of  the  time.^  But 
then  the  question  cannot  help  arising,  If  Jesus  is  avowedly 
wrong  on  all  points  where  a  scientific  view  of  the  world  is 
concerned,  how  are  we  to  trust  Him  when  He  speaks  to  us 
of  supernatural  and  supersensible  realities  ?  May  not  His 
own  words  be  applied,  "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things 
and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you  of 
heavenly  things  ? "  ^  There  need  be  no  dispute  as  to  what  Dr. 
Wendt  says  of  the  religious  ideas  of  Christ,  of  His  spiritual 
conception  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  of  His  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  Fatherhood,  of  His  pure  and  exalted  doctrine  of 
righteousness.  The  sceptic  would  admit  it  all.  He  would 
only  question  whether,  with  the  altered  view  of  the  world 
which  has  arisen  since  Christ's  time,  such  doctrines  are 
tenable  now  as  sober,  objective  truth.  And  to  answer  that 
question  satisfactorily,  firmer  ground  must  be  taken  up  in 
regard  to  Christ's  consciousness  as  a  whole.  Dr.  Wendt's 
book  is,  in  many  respects,  a  richly  instructive  one,  full  of 
suggestive  points,  but  it  lacks  the  means  of  guarding  Christ- 
ianity against  the  subjectivity  which  would  grant  to  it  every 
kind  of  moral  worth  and  beauty,  but  would  deny  its  objective 
truth  as  Eevelation. 

1  DiQ  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  pp.  113-129.  ^  joi^^  ^  22. 


LECTURE  VIL 


fti^^itx  Concept  of  ffioti  tnbol&eti  in  t|je  Ittcarnatton- 
€^t  Incarnation  anU  tfje  plan  of  tfjc  fflHorltt. 


"God  is  one,  but  not  solitary."— Peter  Chrysologus. 

"Christian  worship  calls  men  away  from  the  altars  of  polytheism, 
and  elevates  their  souls  to  the  One  God,  but  it  does  this  in  a  threefold 
direction ;  for  we  know  by  faith  that  eternal  life  streams  down  to  us 
out  of  three  personal  fountains  of  love— from  God  the  Father,  who  has 
created  us  ;  from  God  the  Son,  who  has  redeemed  us  ;  and  from  God  the 
Holy  Ghost,  who  sanctifies  us  and  makes  us  the  children  of  God : — in  the 
Trinity  alone  do  we  possess  the  whole  of  love." — Martensen. 

"The  conceptions  of  speculative  philosophy,  where  they  are  most 
profound,  come  nearest  to  the  Christian  doctrine  ;  nor  need  we  be  anxious 
lest  speculative  philosophy  should  ever  reach  a  height  from  which  it  may 
look  down  and  say  that  the  Christian  element  is  left  behind.  No  thought 
can  transcend  the  Christian  idea,  for  it  is  truth  in  itself." — ^Braniss  (in 
Christlieb). 

"For  who  among  men  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man,  save  the  spirit  of 
the  man,  which  is  in  him  ?  Even  so  the  things  of  God  none  knoweth, 
save  the  Spirit  of  God." — Paul. 


LECTUEE  YII. 

THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD  INVOLVED  IN  THE  INCARNATION 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  THE  PLAN  OF  THE  WORLD. 

The  point  reached  at  the  conclusion  of  last  Lecture  was  that  The  point  now 
the  facts  of  Christ's  Eevelation  are  reconcilable  with  no  lower  ^^^^^^^' 
estimate  of  His  Person  than  that  which  we  find  in  the 
apostolic  writings.  This  conclusion  is  counterchecked  by 
the  circumstance  that,  in  the  history  of  doctrine,  no  lower 
estimate  of  Christ's  Person  has  been  found  able  to  maintain 
itself. 

Theories,   therefore,   like  that   of    Eitschl,    which    ascribe  Recapitulation 
"  Godhead  "  to  Christ  only  in  a  figurative  way,  or  like  those  ^f^'fi'^^'"^ 

^  *=  -"  theories. 

of  Eothe  and  Beyschlag,  which  aim  at  investing  Christ  with 
a  real  Divinity,  but  deny  His  personal  pre-existence,  are  none 
of  them  in  full  harmony  with  Scripture  testimony.  The 
former  sinks  back  into  humanitarianism,  the  latter  involve 
themselves  in  the  difficulty  that  they  must  suppose  a  new 
Divine  person  to  come  into  existence  in  the  Incarnation. 
They  literally  add  a  new  Person  to  the  Godhead.  This  diffi- 
culty is  not  obviated  by  taking  the  predicate  "  Divinity  "  in 
a  quasi-ideal  sense  to  denote  simply  the  ethical  indwelling  of 
God  in  Christ.  There  is  no  doubt  a  true  presence  of  the 
Divine  in  Christ,  just  as  there  is  a  true  presence  of  God  by 
His  Spirit  in  the  heart  of  every  believer ;  and  what  is  im- 
perfectly true  of  the  believer  may  be  held  to  be  perfectly  true 
of  Christ.  But  no  matter  how  entirely  the  believer  is  filled 
with  the  Divine  life,  and  in  this  sense  is  a  partaker  of  the 
Divine  nature,  we  do  not  regard  this  as  a  reason  for  wor- 


302  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

shipping  him.  We  may  worship  and  glorify  the  God 
revealed  in  him,  but  we  do  not  worship  the  believer  him- 
self. The  worship  paid  to  Christ,  therefore,  and  that  from 
the  earliest  period,  marks  a  distinction  between  His  Divinity 
and  that  of  every  other.  Not  simply  as  the  possessor  of  a 
communicated  Divine  nature,  but  in  the  root  of  His  own 
Personality,  Christ  was  Divine. 

/.  Higher  I.  I  come  now  to   speak   of  the  higher   concept  of  God 

concept  of  God  i^yoiyed  in  this  truth  of  the  Incarnation — I  mean  the  con- 

mvolved  m  the 

imarnation:    cept  of  God  as  triune.     This  is  the  first  of  the  corollaries 
God  as  trmne.  ^^  ^^  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  taken  in  connection  with 
the  related  doctrine  of  the  Spirit.     It   must   be   evident  to 
any  one  who  thinks  upon  it  that  such  a  doctrine  as  that  of 
the  Incarnation  cannot  be  seriously  entertained  without  pro- 
foundly reacting  upon  and  modifying  our   concept  of  God. 
Necessity  is  laid  on  us,  as  it  was  laid  on  the  early  Church, 
to  reconstruct   our  concept  of  God  so   as   to   bring  it  into 
harmony   with   the   new   and   higher  Eevelation  which   has 
been  given  us.     The  result   is  the  Trinitarian  view,  which 
Christendom  expresses  in   the    formula  —  Father,   Son,   and 
Spirit,  one  God ;  and  which  is  as  essentially  bound  up  with 
Christianity  as  the  Incarnation  itself.^ 
The  doctrine        Here  let   me   say  to  begin  with  that  it  is  a  mistake  to 
o:ftie    rinity  ^^.^^  ixoxxi  the  triuuc  view  of  God  as  if  it  did  nothinf:^  else 

Jiot  a  mere  o 

mystery:  tes-  than  imposc  a  mystcrious  burden  on  our  faith, — as  if  it  had 
timomes  to  its  ^^  yoicc  to  rcasou,  or  brought  no  light  into  our  view  of  the 
world,  or  had  no  practical  relation  to  Christian  life.  This 
doctrine  has  not  been  gained  indeed  by  speculation,  but  by 
induction  from  the  facts  of  God's  self -revelation, — ^just,  eg, 
as  the  man  of  science  gains  his  knowledge  of  the  polarity 
of  the  magnet  by  induction  from  the  facts  of  nature.     Yet 

^  Kaftan  says  :  "Christian  faith  in  God  is  faith  in  the  three-one  God.  That 
is  the  expression,  alike  simple  and  yet  all-comprehending,  of  the  Christian 
truth  of  faith." — Das  Wtstn,  etc.  p.  387.  Most  modern  theologians,  as 
Schleiermacher,  Biedermann,  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  etc.,  express  themselves 
similarly,  though  each  has  his  own  interpretation  of  the  Trinitarian  formula. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION.  303 

it  is  not  a  doctrine  which  the  Church,  having  once  gained  it, 
could  ever  again  willingly  part  with.  Even  from  a  philo- 
sophical point  of  view,  the  worth  of  this  doctrine  is  very 
great.  The  more  profoundly  speculation  has  occupied  itself 
with  the  mystery  of  the  Divine  existence,  the  more  impossible 
has  it  been  found  to  rest  in  the  thought  of  God  as  an 
abstract,  distinctionless  unity,  the  more  has  the  triune 
conception  of  God  been  felt  to  be  necessary  to  secure  the 
life,  love,  personality, — even  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  Pro- 
fessor Flint  says  of  this  doctrine  that  it  is  "  a  mystery 
indeed,  yet  one  which  explains  many  other  mysteries,  and 
which  sheds  a  marvellous  light  on  God,  on  nature,  and  on 
man."  ^  Professor  Laidlaw  says  of  it,  "  This  doctrine  is  one 
of  the  most  prolific  and  far-reaching  among  the  discoveries 
of  Ptevelation.  Fully  to  receive  it  influences  every  part  of 
our  theological  system,  and  of  our  practical  religion.  It  is 
the  consummation  and  the  only  perfect  protection  of  Theism."  ^ 
Martensen  has  declared,  "  If  Christian  dogmatics  had  not 
asserted  and  developed  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  ethics 
must  postulate  it  in  its  own  interests."  ^  Similar  testimonies 
might  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

It  is  well  to  keep  clearly  in  view  how  this  doctrine  has  This  doctnne 
originated.     It  has  just  been  said  that  the  doctrine  of  the  ^''^/''^^/"'* 

*^  "^  auction  from 

Trinity  is  not  a  result  of  mere  speculation, — not  a  theory  or  the  facts  of 
hypothesis  spun  by  theologians  out  of  their  own  fancies, —  Revelation, 
still  less,  as  some  eminent  writers  would  maintain,  the  result 
of  the  importation  of  Greek  metaphysics  into  Christian 
theology.*  It  is,  in  the  first  instance,  the  result  of  a  simple 
process  of  induction  from  the  facts  of  the  Christian  Eevela- 
tion.  We  could  know  nothing  positively  of  this  self- 
distinction  in  the  nature  of  God  save  as  He  Himself 
discovers  it  to  us  in  the  facts  of  His  self-revelation ;  we  do 
now  know  it  through  the  discovery  of  Himself  as  Father, 

^  Anti-Theistic  Theories,  p.  439. 

2  Bihle  Doctrine  of  Man,  p.  126  (Cunningham  Lectures). 

2  Christian  Ethics,  i.  75  (Eng.  trans.). 

^  Thus  Harnack,  Hatch,  etc. 


304  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

Son,  and  Spirit.  We  know  it  just  as,  e.g.,  we  know  of 
the  existence  of  reason,  memory,  imagination,  will,  etc.,  in 
our  own  minds,  through  their  actual  manifestations ;  or  as 
we  know  of  the  various  modes  of  force  in  nature — light, 
heat,  electricity,  chemical  force,  etc. — through  observation  of 
their  workings.  Our  faith  in  the  Trinity  does  not  rest  even 
on  the  proof-texts  which  are  adduced  from  the  Scriptures  in 
support  of  the  Trinitarian  distinction.^  These  have  their 
value  as  summaries  of  the  truth  we  gain  from  the  complex 
of  facts  of  the  New  Testament  Eevelation,  and  serve  to 
assure  us  that  we  are  on  right  lines  in  our  interpretation  of 
these  facts,  but  the  fundamental  ground  on  which  we  rest  is 
the  facts  themselves.  The  triune  conception  of  God  is  justi- 
fied when  it  is  &hown  to  be  the  conception  which  underlies 
the  triune  Revelation  God  has  given  of  Himself,  and  the 
triune  activity  in  the  work  of  Redemption. 
Ilowfar  is  For  this  Same  reason   that  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 

this  doctrine     ^^^  which  propcrlv  arises  only  out  of  the  facts  of  the  com- 

anticipated  in  x      i.        ^  ^ 

the  Old  Testa-  pleted  Revelation  in  the  New  Testament,  we  do  not  look,  or 
vient'^  look  in  vain,  for  any  full  discovery  of  it  in  the  Old  Testa- 

ment. Yet,  if  the  doctrine  be  true,  we  would  anticipate  that 
the  older  dispensation  would  not  be  without  at  least  some 
foregleams  or  intimations  of  it, — that  some  facts  which 
point  in  its  direction  would  not  be  wanting, — and  this  we 
find  to  be  actually  the  case.  It  is  only,  I  think,  a  very 
superficial  view  of  the  Old  Testament  which  will  allow  us  to 
Significance  Say  that  no  such  traces  exist.  I  do  not  lay  any  stress  upon 
of  the  plural  ^^  plural  word  "  Elohim,"  or  on  the  plural  pronouns  some- 
times  associated  with  it,  though  this  word  is  an  indication  of 
the  deep  feeling  which  the  Hebrews  had  for  that  plurality  of 
powers  in  the  Divine  nature,  which  Polytheism  separated,  and 
worshipped  in  isolation,  or  under  some  visible  manifestation 
(sky,  etc.).  It  is  this  which  constitutes  the  Monotheism  of 
the  Bible  from  the  first  a  living  thing,  and  keeps  it  from 

1  E.g.  Matt,  xxviii.  19 ;  2  Cor.  xiii.  14  ;  1  Cor.  xii.  4-6 ;  1  Pet.  i.  2 ;  Rev. 
i.  4,  5. 


name. 


INVOLVED  IN  THE  INCARNATION.  305 

degenerating  into   a.  hard,  unspiritual   monadism.     More  to 
the  purpose  is  the  large  place  allowed  in  the  Old  Testament 
to    ideas    and    representations  which    naturally   and   almost 
necessarily  suggest — if  indeed   they  do  not    sometimes  for- 
mally express — the  thought  of  self-distinction  in  the  Divine 
nature.      I  might  refer  here  (1)  to  the  remarkable  series  of  (i)  The  Angel 
facts  connected  in  the  older  Scriptures  with  the  appearances  vl^^o"^^^- 
and  Eevelations  of   the  "  Angel  of  Jehovah."  ^      Discussion 
goes  on  to  this  day  as  to  whether  the  mysterious  Being  who 
bears  this  designation  in  the  older  narratives  of  the  Bible  is 
to  be  viewed  as  a  mere  theophany,  or  as  a  created  angel,  or 
as  a  distinct  hypostasis ;  ^  but  I  think  a  dispassionate  review 
of  all  the  facts  will  dispose  us  to  agree  with  Oehler  that, 
judged  by  his  manifestations,  the  "  Mal'ach  "  is  best  described 
as  "a  self-presentation  of  Jehovah,  entering  into  the  sphere 
of  the  creature,  which  is  one  in  essence  with  Jehovah,  and 
yet  again  different   from  Him."^     (2)  We  have   again   the  (2)  The  doc- 
very  full  development  given   to   the   doctrine  of  the  Spirit.  ^^'^^-(^  ^^ 
Ordinarily   the   Spirit   appears   only   as  a   power   or    energy  old  Testa- 
proceeding  from  Jehovah,  but  in  function  and  operation  the  ^^^^^^' 
tendency  is  to  represent  Him  as  an  independent  agent,  and 
there  are  several  passages,  especially  in  the  later  chapters  of 
Isaiah,  where  this  view  receives  distinct  expression.     Such, 
e..g.,  is  Isa.  xl.  13,  "  Who  hath  directed  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord, 
or    being    His    counsellor,    hath    taught    Him  ? "    where,    in 
Oehler's  words,  "  The  Divine  Spirit   acting  in   creation  is  a 

1  ''Angel  of  God"  in  Elohistic  sections.  Cf.  Gen.  xvi.  7-13,  xviii.  20,  26, 
xxii.  11-19,  xxiv.  7,  40,  xxxi.  11-13,  xlviii.  15,  16;  Ex.  iii.  2-6,  xiii.  21, 
compared  with  xiv.  19  ;  xxxii.  14  compared  with  Isa.  Ixiii.  9  ;  Josh.  v.  14,  15  ; 
Zech.  i.  12,  iii.  1,  2,  etc. 

'^  Cf.  on  this  subject  Oehler's  Theology  of  Old  Testament,  i.  pp.  188-196  (Eng. 
trans.);  Schiiltz's  Alttest.  Theol.  pp.  600-606;  Delitzsch's  New  Commentary 
on  Genesis,  on  chap.  xvi.  7,  etc.  Delitzsch  founds  on  Gen.  xviii.  in  support  of 
his  view  that  the  Mal'ach  was  a  created  angel,  but  Schultz  shows  that  this  was 
not  so.  Schultz  holds  a  mediating  view,  but  says  :  "There  is  certainly  in  the 
Angel  of  God  something  of  what  Christian  theology  seeks  to  express  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Logos,"  p.  606.  Delitzsch  also  holds  that  "the  angelophanies 
of  God  were  a  prefiguration  of  His  Christophany, "  ii.  p.  21. 

3  Theology  of  Old  Testament,  i.  p.  193. 

20 


3o6 


THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 


(3)  The 
Divine  IVis- 
dom.  etc. 


TTu  doctriite 
of  the  Trinity 
ai  involving 
distinctions  in 
the  Divine 
esseiue. 


Objection 
taken  on  this 
score — *'  One 
and  Three." 


consciously  working  and  intelligent  power."  ^  Cheyne  observes 
on  the  same  passage :  "  In  Isaiah  there  is  a  marked  tendency 
to  hypostatise  the  Spirit;  here,  for  instance,  consciousness 
and  intelligence  are  distinctly  predicated  of  the  Spirit."* 
(3)  There  is  in  the  later  books  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Wisdom,  which  in  the  Jewish  and  Alexandrian  schools 
developed  into  the  view  of  a  distinct  hypostasis.  Still, 
whatever  the  measure  of  these  approximations,  it  was  not 
till  the  actual  appearance  of  the  Son  in  the  flesh,  and  till 
the  actual  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  consequent  on  Christ's 
exaltation,  that  the  facts  were  available  which  gave  this 
doctrine  a  distinct  place  in  the  faith  of  the  Church. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  first  of  all  a  doctrine  of 
distinctions  interior  to  the  Divine  essence,  and  as  such  it 
has  frequently  been  objected  to  on  the  ground  that  it  asks 
us  to  accept  an  intellectual  puzzle,  or  to  believe  in  an  in- 
tellectual contradiction — that  three  can  be  one,  and  one  be 
three.  No  objection  is  more  common  than  this,  yet  none  is 
more  baseless — more  narrowly  the  jjroduct  of  the  mere 
logical  understanding.^  The  objection  does  not  turn  peculiarly 
on  the  point  of  the  attribution  of  Personality  to  the  three 
modes  of  existence  in  the  Godhead — to  call  them  such  for 


»  Theology  of  Old  Testament,  i,  p.  172. 

*  On  Isa.  xlriiL  16,  Cheyne  remarks :  **  I  cannot  but  think  with  Kleinert 
(who,  however,  makes  'His  Spirit'  the  subject),  that  we  have  both  here  and 
in  Gen.  L  2  an  early  trace  of  what  is  known  as  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Spirit";  and  on  chap.  xliiL  10,  "There  is  an  evident  tendency  in  this 
book  to  hypostatise  the  Holy  Spirit  (which  it  mentions  no  less  than  seven 
times)  with  special  dutinctnesii.  The  author  has  already  claimed  to  have 
been  sent  in  personal  union  with  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah  ;  he  now  employs 
another  phrase  which  could  not  hare  been  used  (cf.  ver.  14)  except  of  a 
person."  Delitzscb  confirms  this  riew,  remarking  on  cliap.  xlviii.  16 : 
*' Although  'His  Spirit'  is  taken  as  %  secood  object,  the  passage  confinus 
what  Cheyne  and  Driver  agree  in  remarking,  that  in  II.  Isa,  the  tendency  is 
evidently  to  regard  the  Spirit  of  God  ag  a  separate  i>er8ouality."  Schultz 
remarks,  in  speaking  of  Creation  :— "The  Spirit  of  God  and  His  Word  appear 
as  powers  enclosed  in  God.  The  Spirit  apiK^ara  as  very  independent,  in  the 
manner  of  a  hypostasis."— ^/««^<.  Tlifol.  p.  569.  On  the  doctrine  of  tlie  Spirit 
in  the  Old  Testament,  see  Schultz,  Oehler,  and  Kleiuert  in  Jahrhucher  fur 
deuUche  TIi£ologit  for  1667  (referred  to  by  Cheyne). 

*  Cf.  Hegel,  lieHf/hnsphilowphu:,  ii.  pp.  237  239. 


/  IN  VOL  VED  IN  T//E  INCARNATION.  307 

tiiC  present — but  ftirriply  on  the  formal  contradiction  of  "  one 

ind  three."     But  what  \%  there  to  which  the  sanuj  objection 

would  not  apply  ?     What  i«  there  which  i«  not  at  the  ftaxne 

time  one  and  manifold  ?    Take  any  ob)V;t — it  can  only  be  f/niiy  and 

wnceived  of  a»  unity  of  »u)>»tanc<i,  yet  plurality  of  attributeH.^J^^^^^y" 

Take  mind — it  i«  one,  if  anything  i«,  yet  we  distinguish  in  Suhtiame  and 

ujety  of  jx)wer8 — reason,  memory,  imagination,  will, '*^^'''^^''' 
etc., — a  plurality  of  far;ultie»,  yet  all  expressions  of  the  one  Mind. 
undivided   spiritual  self.     Take  any  form  of  life — what  wi  Life, 
unfolding  into  multiplicity  have  we  there  of  what  i«  lit  it« 
principle  one.     Is  it  not  the  y&ty  anmnce  of  life  to  unfold 
and  maintain  itself  in  the  play  of  distinctions  ?     Take  a  yet  ultimate 
higher  view,  and  the  same  fjontradiction  n^fi/^Xjtk  tus — if  c/m-^^*^^^^^ 

^  ^  universe  not  a 

tradiction  jt  is — in    any  exi)lanation  we  may  give   of   iha  aistimtimiett 
ultimate  ground  of  the  universe.     ll(mev(sr  we  may  choose  *''*'^-^' 
to  conceive  of  it,  the  many  must  in  some  way  have  come  out 
of  the   One, — that  One,  ac<x>rdingly,  must  have  in  it  a  plu- 
rality of  powers,  must  be  thought  of  as  capable  of  expressing, 
unfolding,  or   differentiating  itself  into  a  manifold,     Thii 
?is  true  on  the  pintheistic  hypothesis,  or  on  Mr.  Spencer's 
LiHiory  of  an   Unknowable  Power,  which  manifests   itself  in 
matter  and    mind,   or  on    any    of    the  monistic  systems, — 
Ifa^jckel'fi  or  I lartm an n *s,  ^>i*  example, — a«  in  the  ClimiiAn  TAe  £lMtie 
dfxjtrine.     It  will  be  remembered  how  this  question  was  one  LX/j^>i  ^7nd 
of  the  difficulties  discussed  in  the  early  Greek  schools,  and  ///  remits. 
what  came  of  the  attempts  of  the  Eleatics  and  others  to  hold 
fast  the  unity  of  the  Absolute  in  contrast  to  all  distinctions, 
om  the   idea   of   one  absolute   distinctionless    unity,  ex- 
cluding   all    plurality,   all    change,  all    mobility,  all    decay, 
came  the  relegation  of  the  world  of  perception  to  the  cate- 
gory of  mere  seeming,  show,  unreality,  non-being — in  brief, 
the  denial  of  the  reality  of  the  existing  world,  or  Acosmism.' 
It    was    in   the    atterr/pt    to    overry^me    this   difficulty    ihai /tttempts  t<f 
philosophy  from  Tlato  downwards  felt  the  nee^l   of  a  con- 'JZ'''T '^*' 

.  difuultyin 

ception  of  God  which  should  em]jTeice  the  element  of  self-  /aho,  etc. 

'  Cf.  Zeller  on  Ui«  Eleatic*,  PreSoeratk  Fhiloi&j^hy,  i  pp.  (20-e42« 


3o8  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

distinction.  Hence  the  Logos  speculations  of  the  Stoics  and 
Modern  specii-  of  Philo,  the  nou8  of  the  Neo-Platonists.  In  like  manner, 
lativephil-       self_diremption,  self-distinction  in  God,  is  the  key  to  all  the 

osophy. 

higher  speculative  movements  of  the  present  century. 
Whether  their  Trinitarian  views  be  held  to  be  satisfactory 
or  not,  they  have  at  least  served  to  show  that  the  Trinitarian 
conception,  instead  of  being  the  shallow  thing  it  is  sometimes 
represented  to  be,  includes  elements  of  the  deepest  specu- 
lative importance.^ 
Real  objection  It  is  not,  therefore,  to  the  mere  fact  that  Christianity 
must  be  to  the        -^^  self- distinctions  in  God,  but  to   the   nature   of  these 

distinctions  as  ^ 

personal.         distinctions  as  personal,  that  the  real  objections   to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity  must   be  addressed.     And   this  is  the 
point  on  which,  within  the  Church  itself,  discussion  on   the 
nature  of  the   Trinity  really  turns.     What  is  the  character 
of  this   distinction   which   we   must  ascribe   to   God,  which 
exhaustively  expresses,  or  does  full  justice   to,  the  facts  of 
the  Christian  Eevelation  ?     Is  it  a  distinction  of  essence,  or 
only  of  working  ?  an  immanent  distinction,  or  one   only  of 
Eevelation  ?    a    personal    distinction,   or    one   which    is    im- 
Drawbacks  of  personal  ?     Now  in  applying   this  word  "  Person "  to  these 
the  word  ^^       distinctions  in  the  Godhead,  it  is  granted  that  we  are  con- 
scious of  inevitable  limitations  and    drawbacks.       The    ob- 
jection commonly  made  to  the  word  is  that  it  represents  the 
Godhead  as  constituted  by  three  separate  individualities,  as 
distinct  from   each  other   as  human  beings  are  distinct, — a 
conception   which  would,  of  course,  be  fatal  to  the  Divine 
Early  use  of    Unity.     This  word   Person,  it   is  to   be   observed,  does    not 
terms:  Aug-    Q^cur  in  Scripturc  itself.^     It   comes   to  us  from  the  Latin, 

us  tine  on  this. 

1  "In  philosophy,"  says  Hegel,  "it  is  shown  that  the  whole  content  of 
nature,  of  spirit,  gravitates  to  this  centre  as  its  absolute  tT\xi\\.''  —Rel'Kjiom- 
philosophie,  ii.  p.  229. 

2  Calvin  on  this  ground  objected  to  the  term.  *' Specially  was  he  annoyed 
by  the  attacks  made  on  him  by  one  Caroli,  who  impeached  his  orthodoxy,  and 
even  had  him  brought  before  a  synod  to  clear  himself  of  the  charge  of  Arianisra. 
It  is  curious  to  see  Calvin — hard  dogmatist  as  we  are  apt  to  think  him— called 
to  account  for  not  using  the  terms  'Trinity'  and  'Person'  in  his  teachings  on 
the  Godhead,   and  having  to   defend  himself  for  his  preference   for  simple 


INVOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA TION.  309       . 

while  the  Greek  Church  employed  the  term  viroGTaoi^,  or 
substance;  so  that,  as  Augustine  says,  the  Greeks  spoke 
of  one  essence,  three  substances,  but  the  Latins  of  one 
substance,  three  Persons,  while  yet  both  meant  the  same 
thing.^  The  same  father  even  says,  "  Three  Persons,  if  they 
are  to  be  so-called,  for  the  unspeakable  exaltedness  of  Wio,  Need  of  the 
object  cannot  be  set  forth  by  this  term,"  2  and  he  reminds  us  ^^P^^^^i'^n- 
of  what  I  have  just  stated,  that  Scripture  does  not  anywhere 
mention  three  Persons.^  Too  much  stress,  therefore,  must  not 
be  laid  on  the  mere  term.  Yet  I  do  not  know  any  other 
word  which  would  so  well  express  the  idea  which  we  wish  to 
convey,  and  which  the  titles  Eather,  Son,  and  Spirit  seem  to 
imply — the  existence  in  the  Divine  nature  of  three  mutually 
related  yet  distinct  centres  of  knowledge,  love,  and  will,  not 
existing  apart  as  human  individualities  do,  but  in  and  through 
each  other  as  moments  in  one  Divine  self-conscious  life. 

Using  the  term  "  Person,"  therefore,  to  denote  distinctions  Proof  that  dis- 
in  the  Divine  nature,  properly  described  as  I  and  Thou  and  ^'^^^^^"^^^f 

\^  thts  kind  are 

He,   without  contradiction   of    the   thought   of  the   compre-  implied. 
hension   of  these   distinctions  in  a  higher  unity  of  essence, 
we    certainly    hold    that    the  distinctions   in    the   Christian 
Trinity  are  personal.      This  is  already  implied,  as  just  hinted, 
in  the  names  given  to  the  members  of  the  Trinitarian  circle  The  Trinit- 
— Father,    Son,  and   Spirit, — at   least    the  two    former  are  ^'^^^;^'"'' 
personal,  and  for  that  very  reason  the  third  is  presumably  implied  in 
so  also.      But,  apart  from  this,  all  those  facts  and  testimonies  ^^'"^^^  ff ^- 

^  '  _  ship  of  Christ ; 

which  go  to  show  that  in  Christ  we  have  the  Incarnation  of  implied  in 

testimonies 
sci'iptural  expressions.     When  blamed  by  Caroli  for  not  accepting  the  ancient  about  the 
creeds,  he  'rejoined,'  say  the  Genevese  preachers  (in  a  letter  to  Berne),  ^\)i\^\.  Spirit. 
we  have  sworn  to  the  belief  in  One  God,  and  not  to  the  creed  of  Athanasins, 
whose  symbol  a  true  Chnrch  would  never  have  had  admitted.'" — Lecture  on 
"John  Calvin"  by  the  author,  in  volume  on  The.  Reformers  (1885). 

^  De  Trinitate,  Book  vii.  chap.  iv.  (p.  189,  trans,  in  Clark's  series).  Cf. 
Book  v.  chap.  v.  p.  155. 

2  Quoted  by  Van  Oosterzee,  Dogmatics,  p.  289  (Eug.  trans.),  Cf.  De  Trini- 
tate, v.  9  :  "  When  the  question  is  asked.  What  three  ?  human  language  labours 
altogether  under  great  poverty  of  speech.  The  answer,  however,  is  given,  three 
persons,  not  that  it  might  be  spoken,  but  that  it  might  not  be  left  unspoken." 

^  De  Trinitate,  Book  iv.  chap.  iv.  sec.  8,  p.  192  (Eng.  trans.). 


THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 


a  true  Divine  Person,  distinct  from  the  Father,  establish  this 
truth;  while,  finally,  all  the  facts  and  testimonies  which 
show  that  the  Holy  Spirit,  sent  forth  by  Christ  as  the 
Guide,  Teacher,  Comforter,  and  Sanctifier  of  His  disciples,  is 
a  Divine  Person,  distinct  from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  sup- 
port the  same  view.  I  do  not  enlarge  on  this  series  of  testi- 
monies relating  to  the  Spirit,  for  the  reason  that  few  who 
admit  a  real  personal  distinction  in  regard  to  the  Son  are 
disposed  to  deny  it  in  regard  to  the  Spirit.  It  has, 
indeed,  been  said,  and  with  justice,  that  in  regard  to  the 
Son  the  dispute  has  not  been  as  to  His  Personality,  but  as 
to  His  Divinity ;  while  in  regard  to  the  Spirit  the  dispute 
has  not  been  as  to  His  Divinity  but  as  to  His  Personality. 
Yet  it  is  a  rare  thing  to  find  those  who  admit  the  Per- 
sonality and  Divinity  of  the  Son  denying  the  Personality  of 
the  Spirit ;  rather  it  is  felt  that  if  the  distinction  of  Father 
and  Son  is  admitted  there  is  a  necessity  for  completing  the 
triad  in  the  Divine  life  by  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Spirit 
also.  The  other  view  of  a  merely  modal  or  economical 
Trinity — a  Trinity,  that  is,  not  of  essence,  but  only  of  Ee- 
velation  —  has  had  many  advocates  both  in  ancient  and 
modern  times,  but  falls  to  the  ground  if  a  true  Incarnation  of 
the  Son  be  admitted.^  It  is,  besides,  loaded  with  difficulties 
and  contradictions  of  its  own,  which  make  it,  whenever  the 
matter  is  thought  out,  untenable  as  an  hypothesis.  In  the 
Difficulties  of  old  Sabelliau  view,  for  example,  we  had  indeed  a  Divine 
this  view:       ci^rigi-    "b^t  i-jje   distinction    between    Father  and    Son    was 

ancient  and 

modern  Sabei-  abolished,  bccausc  it  was  the  same  being  who  first  appeared 

^  Biederinann  and  Pfleiderer  grant  that,  with  the  presupposition  of  the 
Personal  Incarnation  in  Christ,  the  ontological  Trinity  is  inevitable.  "The 
Trinity,"  says  Biedermann,  "is  the  specific  Christian  concept  of  God,  as  it 
must  necessarily  develop  itself  out  of  the  identification  of  the  Divine  principle 
in  Christ  with  the  Ego  of  Jesus  Christ." — Dogmatik,  ii.  p.  600.  Pfleiderer  says  : 
"  When  we  observe  that  dogmatic  reflection  had  to  work  with  the  presupposi- 
tions set  up  by  the  Pauline  and  Johannine  theology,  and  with  the  notions 
provided  in  the  philosophy  of  the  age,  we  can  scarcely  imagine  any  other  result 
to  have  been  possible  than  that  embodied  in  the  decrees  of  the  councils  of 
Nicaea,  Constantinople,  and  Chalcedon." — Eeligionsphilosophie,  iii.  p.  218 
(Eng.  trans.). 


Alternative 
view — an 
ecotiomical 
Trinity. 


lianism. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3 1 1 

as  Father,  who  afterwards  appeared  as  Son.  Modern  theories 
escape  this  difficulty  by  ascribing  to  Christ  only  an  ethical 
Sonship — that  is,  by  denying  His  true  Divinity ;  but  this  in 
turn  deprives  us  of  even  a  Trinity  of  Eevelation.  We  have 
now  God  the  Father  and  God  the  Spirit,  but  no  longer,  in  the 
proper  sense,  God  the  Son.  The  Son  is  the  bearer  or  medium 
of  the  Eevelation  of  the  Father,  but  does  not  Himself  belong  to 
the  Divine  circle.  Or  suppose  that  with  Eothe  and  Beyschlag 
we  seek  to  save  Christ's  Divinity  by  asserting  a  "  becoming " 
Godhead,  then  we  involve  ourselves  in  the  old  dilemma,  that 
to  complete  the  Trinitarian  circle,  we  add  a  new  Person  to 
the  Godhead,  and  the  Trinity  is  no  longer  economical.  The 
only  way  of  clearing  ourselves  of  these  entanglements  is  to 
hold  fast  to  the  scriptural  idea  of  the  true  entrance  of  a 
Divine  Personal  Being — the  Eternal  Son — into  the  condi- 
tions of  humanity  ;  and,  in  accordance  with  this,  to  move  back 
from  an  economical  to  an  ontological  and  personal  Trinity.^ 

The    question  is  now   to    be    considered,  How   does    this  Relations  of 
doctrine  stand  related  to  rational  thought  and  to  experience  ?  f"  f!""^''"'^ 

*=•       ^  ^  to  rational 

It  may  be   thought   that  at  the  best  this   doctrine    is   one  thought. 
to  be  received  as  a   mystery   of  faith,  that  it  can  bring  no 
light  or  help  to  the  intellect,  and  that  in  point  of  simplicity 
and  clearness  it   compares   unfavourably  with   the  Unitarian 
view.      This,  however,  if  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  true, 
is  most  unlikely  ;  and   I  confess  to  have  a  great  dislike  to 
doctrines  which  are  supposed  to  come  to  us  in  the  form  of 
absolute  mysteries,   and    to  have  no  point  of  contact   with 
thought  through  which  some  ray  of  rational  light  may  break 
in  upon  them.     In   proof  that  the  Trinitarian  view  is  not  The  admission 
without  relation  to  thought  I  might  appeal  to  the  fact  that  ^"^^^^^f ^^"'' 
it  is    to   the    influence  of  philosophical  thought   on  Christ- volved  in  the 
ianity  that  many  would  attribute  the  rise  of  such  a  doctrine  ^^^'^^^^^^^^^■ 
in  the  Church  at  all.      It  is   certainly  not  without  m^^mng  philosophy. 
that,  as  already   remarked,  in    the    attempt    to  explain  the 

1  "The  anti-trinitarian  movements  of  recent  times  have  made  it  perfectly- 
clear  that  there  consequently  only  remains  the  choice  either  to  think  of  God  in 


312  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

Eevelation  of  God  to  the  world,  we  should  see  a  Logos  doctrine 
springing  up  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria  ;  should  find  at  a 
later  period  the  Neo-Platonists  developing  on  Platonic  prin- 
ciples something  like  a  doctrine  of  the  Trinity ;  should  find 
in  the  deep-reaching  speculations  of  Bohme  in  the  seventeenth 
century,^  and  in  the  modern  speculative  philosophies,  the  self- 
diremption  of  God  as  an  essential  feature.  These  speculative 
constructions  are  sometimes  far  enough  removed  from  the 
pure  Christian  view,  but  they  have  a  value  as  bringing  clearly 
to  light  the  reality  of  a  threefold  pulse  or  movement,  involved 
-in  the  very  nature  of  thought,  and  the  fact  that  the  life  of 
Spirit  only  maintains  itself  through  this  triple  movement  of 
distinction  of  self  from  other,  and  the  resolution  of  this 
distinction  in  a  higher  unity.  These  thoughts  of  the  specu- 
lative philosophy  I  heartily  accept,  and  believe  them  to  be  in 
deepest  harmony  with  Christian  doctrine.^ 
Fsychological  The  attempts  met  with  in  Augustine  and  others  to  find 
analogies  in     ^^  -^^        ^f  ^j^^  Trinity  in  the  constitution  of  the  soul  need 

Augustine  and  ,       _  *' 

others.  uot   detain  us   here.     Augustine's  ingenious  analysis  of  the 

mind's  relation  to   its   own   knowledge,  and  of   both  to  its 

a  UDitarian  manner,  and  in  that  case  to  see  even  in  Jesus  a  mere  man,  or,  if  Ho 
is  supposed  to  be  the  God-Man,  to  hold  to  eternal  distinctions  in  God,  and 
therefore  to  undertake  to  prove  that  the  unity  of  God  is  quite  consistent  with 
such  distinctions." — Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  i.  p.  415  (Eng.  trans.).  But 
has  Dr.  Dorner  himself  a  truly  immanent  Trinity?  See  Note  A. — Recent 
Theories  of  the  Trinity. 

^  Bohme's  "mode  of  imagining,  of  thinking,"  says  Hegel,  "is  certainly 
somewhat  fantastic  and  wild  ;  he  has  not  raised  himself  into  the  pure  form 
of  thought,  but  this  is  the  ruling,  the  ground  tendency  of  his  ferment  and 
struggle — to  see  the  Trinity  in  everything  and  everywhere." — Relkjionsphilo- 
sophie,  ii.  p.  246. 

^  "No  wonder,"  says  Christlieb,  "that  philosophy  too — and  that  not  only 
the  old  mystic  theosophical  speculation,  but  also  modern  idealism,  with  all  the 
acuteness  of  its  dialectics — has  taken  up  the  idea  of  a  Triune  God,  and 
endeavoured  to  comprehend  and  prove  it.  .  .  .  Their  efforts  show  us  that 
modern  philosophy  (from  Jacob  Bohme  onwards)  feels  that  this  doctrine  is  the 
true  solution  of  the  world's  enigma.  Moreover,  these  philosophical  investiga- 
tions cast  a  strong  light  on  the  unconscionable  superficiality  and  shortsighted- 
ness of  those  who  most  reject  this  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith 
untested,  without  a  notion  of  its  deep  religious,  philosophical,  and  historical 
importance."— iV/oc?er«e  Zweifel,  pp.  273,  274  (Eng.  trans.).  See  Note  A.— 
As  above. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3 1 3 

love  of  itself, — of  the  relations  of  memory,  understanding, 
and  will, — his  comparison  of  the  Divine  Word  to  our  own 
inner  and  mental  word,  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  love, — 
have  profounder  elements  in  them  than  is  always  recognised ; 
but  he  himself  is  quite  conscious  of  the  imperfection  of  Their  defects, 
the  analogies,  and  especially  of  the  fact  that  what  they  give 
us  is  a  Trinity  of  powers  and  functions  in  the  one  Person, 
and  not  a  Trinity  of  personal  distinctions.^  If  I  were  dis- 
posed to  look  for  a  shadow  of  such  distinctions  in  our  own 
mental  life  I  am  not  sure  but  that  I  would  seek  it,  as 
Augustine  also  hints,  in  that  mysterious  power  which  the 
soul  has  of  dialogue  with  itself, — in  that  indrawn,  ideal  life 
of  the  spirit,  when  the  mind,  excluding  the  outward  world,  Suggestive 
holds  converse  and  arf]jument  with  itself — divides  itself  as  it  ^[^^^^^y  ^^ 

°  ....  ^"'^  mind  s 

were  within  itself,  and  holds  discussion  with  itself,  ^Viitin^  power  of  self- 
its  questions  and  answering  them,  proposing  difficulties  and  '^°^^'"^^'^^' 
solving  them,  offering  objections  and  repelling  them, — all  the 
while  remaining,  as  we  may  say,  in  a  third  capacity  the 
neutral  spectator  of  itself,  taking  watchful  note  of  what  is 
advanced  on  both  sides  of  the  debate,  and  passing  favourable 
or  unfavourable  judgment  on  the  issues.  Yet,  after  all,  this 
trilogy  is  only  shadow,  and  in  conjunction  with  other 
elements  of  our  spiritual  life,  can  but  faintly  suggest  to  us 
what,  if  the  distinction  went  deeper,  Trinity  might  mean. 

We  get   more   help   when,  leaving  the  ground  of  purely  Relation  of 
psych olocrical  analoc^ies,  we  proceed   to  inquire  into  the  con-   ^J'^^^'^^^f 

^    J  G  o       '  r  i  selfconsaous' 

ditions  under  which,  so  far  as  our  thought  can  go,  self-con-  ness,  etc.    its 
sciousness,  personality,  love,  are  possible.     Here  we  begin  to  P^^^^^'^f  '^^^^^^ 

'  ^  J  >  »  r  °  on  this  side. 

^  Augustine  is  constantly  acknowledging  the  imperfection  of  finite  analogies 
to  express  the  ineffable  reality  of  the  Godhead.  See  specially  Book  xv.  The 
following  are  some  of  the  headings  of  chapters  :  "That  it  is  not  easy  to  discover 
the  Trinity  that  is  God  from  the  trinities  we  have  spoken  of"  "There  is  the 
greatest  possible  unlikeness  between  our  word  and  knowledge  and  the  Divine 
Word  and  knowledge."  "Still  further  of  the  difference  between  the  knowledge 
and  word  of  our  mind,  and  the  knowledge  and  Word  of  God.  "  How  great  is 
the  unlikeness  between  our  word  and  the  Divine  Word  !  Our  word  cannot  be, 
or  be  called,  eternal,"  etc.  "We  know  but  in  an  enigma,"  and  "Who  can 
explain  how  great  is  the  unlikeness  also,  in  this  glass,  in  this  enigma,  in  this 
likeness,  such  as  it  is?"— De  Trimtate,  i).  402  (Eng.  trats.)- 


314  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

see  the  positive  philosophical  and  theological  value  of  this 
concept  of  God.  There  are  several  points  of  view  from 
which  its  advantage  over  the  Unitarian  view  of  God  becomes 
apparent. 
I.  Thededuc'  1.  First  of  all,  there  is  the  bearing  of  this  doctrine  on 
Hon  from         ^^.^  Divine  self-consciousness — on  knowledge  and  Personality 

knowledge.  ^  . 

in  God.  The  relation  of  knowledge  seems  necessarily  to 
imply  a  distinction  of  subject  and  object.  Philosophers  have 
spoken  of  a  transcendental  kind  of  knowledge  which  is  above 
this  distinction, — in  which  subject  and  object  melt  into  one. 
But  their  words  convey  no  idea  to  the  mind.  ^  The  only  kind 
of  knowledge  we  are  capable  of  conceiving  is  one  in  which 
the  subject  distinguishes  himself  from  some  object  which  is 
not  himself,  and  through  this  distinction  returns  to  knowledge 
of  himself  and  of  his  own  states.  In  our  own  case,  this 
knowledge  of  self  is  mediated  through  knowledge  of  the 
outward  world,  and  in  the  highest  degree  through  intercourse 
with  our  fellow  human  beings.  Seizing  on  this  analogy, 
Supposition  some  have  thought  that  the  Divine  consciousness  might  be 
that  the  diviiu^^^^^^^^^  of  as  mediated  by  the  idea  of  the  world.^     The 

consciousness      ^  '' 

is  mediated  by  idea  of  the  world  in  this  view  takes  the  place  of  the  Son 
the  idea  of  the  -^^  ^|^q  orthodox  theologv.     The  obiections  to  this  are — 

world.  ^-^  *^ 

Objections  to         (1)  It   makes   God   dependent  on   the  world,  the  idea  of 
this:  which    is   necessary    for    the    realisation    of    His    self  -  con- 

{!)  Makes  God      .  '^ 

dependent  on      SClOUSnCSS. 

the  world;  (2)  The  objcct  in  this  case  is  an  ideal  one,  and  this  seems 

(2)  The  object    .      \  ,       /  ^.    ^  -.         ,.  .  -r-r        ,     • 

only  ideal.  inadequate  to  mediate  a  real  self-consciousness.  Hegel  is 
consistent,  accordingly,  if  this  theory  is  to  be  adopted,  in 
making  not  the  idea  of  the  world,  but  the  world  itself,  the 
object  through  which  the  Divine  Spirit  attains  to  self-con- 
sciousness. 

(3)  The  ob-  (3)  The  world  is  a  finite  object,  and  cannot  be  an  adequate 
jec  a  Jim  e      means  for  the  mediation  of  an  infinite  self-consciousness.^ 


one 


1  Thus,  e.g.,  Weisse. 

'  It  is  besides  only  progressively  realised,  and  thus  would  involve  a  groicing 
self-consciousness. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION.  3 1 5 

(4)  Finally,   the    world   is   not    a    personal    object.     But  (4)  The  object 
the    true    depths     of    personality    are    only    sounded    when  ^^^^P^^^^nai. 
the    "  I "    knows    itself    in     contradistinction    from    and    in 
reciprocal    relations   with   a   "  Thou " — a   counter-self   to  its 


own.^ 

The  result  we   reach  by  this  line  of  thought  is  that  we  The  Christian 
can  only  secure  the  reality  of  the  Divine  self-consciousness  '^^^"~^^^ 

Divine  con- 

by  regarding  it  as  complete  in  itself — apart  from  the  \^^?^  sdousness  selj- 
of  the   world  :    and  this   can   only  be  done  by  positinoj  an  ^^^^^^^^ 

.    '.  ^  J     f  o  through  the 

immanent  distinction  in  the  Godhead,  through  which  the  son  and 
Divine  consciousness  carries  its  object  within  itself ;  and  ^P^^'it- 
this  neither  an  ideal,  nor  finite,  nor  impersonal  object, 
but  One  in  whom  God  sees  His  own  personal  image 
perfectly  expressed, — who,  in  Scripture  language,  is  "  the 
effulgence  of  His  glory,  and  the  very  image  of  His  sub- 
stance "  (hiTOGTadm)?'  The  value  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  from  this  point  of  view  is  very  evident.  The  third 
moment — that  which  corresponds  to  the  Holy  Spirit — is 
more  difficult  to  arrive  at  a  priori,  but  one  feels  the 
need  of  it  to  complete  the  circle  of  the  Divine  life  in 
bringing  to  light  the  unity  which  underlies  the  previous 
distinction.^ 

2.  A  more  familiar  deduction  is  that  from  Divine  love.  2.  The  dcduc- 
Here,  in  realising  what  is  involved  in  Divine  love,  we  feel,  *^°*^p'°^^^ 

'  ^  '  '  love. 

quite  as  strongly  as  in  the  case  of  the  Divine  Personality, 
the  need  of  self-distinction.  The  proof  of  the  Trinity  from 
love  —  if  proof  it  can  be  called  —  is   a   favourite  one  with 

^  This  objection  is  not  obviated  by  assuming  a  world  of  finite  personalities. 

2  Heb.  i.  3.  Pfleiderer  supposes  that  the  Divine  self-consciousness  is  mediated 
by  God's  own  thoughts  ("His  changing  activities  and  states") — but  thoughts 
of  what? — Relicjionsphilosophie,  iii.  p.  282  (Eug.  trans.). 

3  Cf.  on  this  argument  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  pp.  422-426  ;  Christlieb, 
Moderne  Zweifel,  pp.  271,  272  (Eng.  trans.),  etc.  Hegel  makes  it  the 
starting-point  of  his  deduction.  "Knowing  implies  that  there  is  another 
which  is  known ;  and  in  the  act  of  knowing,  the  other  is  appropriated. 
Herein  it  is  contained  that  God,  the  eternally  in -and -for -Himself  exist- 
ing One,  eternally  begets  Himself  as  His  Son,  distinguishes  Himself 
from  Himself — the  absolute  act  of  judgment."  —  ReligionsphiloHophie,  ii. 
p.  228. 


3i6  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

A  theologians.^  "  God  is  love."  ^  But  love  is  self-commuiiica- 
I  tion  to  another.  There  cannot  be  love  without  an  object  to 
/be  loved.  If,  therefore,  God  is  essentially  love,  this  is  in 
other  words  to  say  that  He  has  from  eternity  an  object  of 
His  love.  This  object  cannot  be  the  world — ideally  or 
really — for  the  reason  already  given,  that  this  would  be  to 
make   God   dependent   on  the   world, — to   make  the   world, 

)  indeed,  an  essential  moment  in  God's  life, — whereas  the  true 
doctrine  is  that  God  has  love  in  its  fulness  in  Himself,  and 
out   of  that  fulness   of  love,  loves  the   world.^     The  world, 
besides,  is   a   finite    object,   and  could    not  be   an  adequate 
object  for   the   infinite  love   of  God.     If,   therefore,   God  is 
love  in  Himself — in  His  own  eternal  and  transcendent  being 
— He   must  have   in   some  way  within  Himself  the  perfect 
and  eternal  object  of  His  love — which  is  just  the  Scripture 
doctrine  of  the  Son.     This  view  of  God  is  completed  in  the 
•    perfect  communion  the  Divine  Persons  have  with  each  other 
through    the   Holy  Spirit — the   bond   and   medium  of  their 
\  love. 
The  opposite         To    See    the  importance    of    this    view,   we    have    but  to 
hypothesis—  /  contrast  it  with  its  opposite,  and  to  ask,  What  can  love  in 

love  m  a  son-  rc^ 

iary  God.  God  mean  on  the  supposition  of  His  absolute  solitariness  ? 
What  can  be  the  object  of  God's  love  throughout  eternity, 
if  there  is  no  triune  distinction  in  God  ?  What  can  it  be 
but  Himself  ?  Instead  of  love,  therefore,  as  we  understand 
it, — affection   going  out  to  another, — what  we  have  in  the 

^  It  is  developed  specially  by  Sartorius  in  his  Doctrine  of  Divine  Love 
(traDslated).  See  also  Martensen's  Christian  Ethics,  i.  p.  73  ;  Christlieb's 
Moderne  Zweifel,  pp.  272,  273  (Eng.  trans.)  ;  Laidlaw's  Bible  Doctrine  of  MaVy 
pp.  126,  127 ;  Murphy's  Scientific  Basis  of  Faith,  p.  377;  Lux  Mundi,  p.  92,  etc. 

2  1  John  iv.  16. 

^  This  is  an  important  point  in  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Love.  The  thought  is 
already  met  with  in  Irenseus.  Cf.  Dorner,  Person  of  Christ,  i.  p.  306.  Marten- 
sen  says:  "God's  love  to  the  world  is  only  then  pure  and  unmixed  holy 
affection  when  God,  whilst  He  is  sufficient  to  Himself  and  iu  need  of  nothing, 
out  of  infinite  grace  and  mercy  calls  forth  life  and  liberty  beyond  His  own 
Being.  .  .  .  But  this  free  power  of  love  in  the  relations  of  God  to  the  world 
presupposes  the  existence  of  perfect  love  realised  within  itself,  the  love  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son  in  the  unity  of  the  Holy  ^\m\V —Christian  Ethics,  i.  p. 
74.     Similarly  Dorner  in  his  Christian  Ethics,  p.  94  (Eng.  trans.). 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION,  3 1 7 

universe  is  an  infinite  solitary  Ego  ;  a  Being  who  loves  Himself 
only,  as,  indeed,  there  is  no  other  to  love.  Either,  therefore, 
vi^e  must  come  back  to  seek  an  object  for  God's  love  in  the 
finite,  created  world,  or  recognise  that  God  has  an  infinitely 
blessed  life  of  love  within  Himself,  and  this  brings  us  to  the 
doctrine  of  an  immanent  Trinity.  The  value  of  the  doctrine 
in  an  ethical  aspect  is  seen  when  we  recognise  that  only 
through  the  Trinitarian  distinction  are  we  brought  into  com- 
munion with  a  Being  who  has  within  Himself  a  life  of  y 
communion. 

3.  Connected  with  this  as  a  third  point  of  view — though  3.  Deduction 
it  is  really  only  an  extension  of  the  foresfoino; — is  a  deduction -^^'^''^  ^^^ 

^  ^  ^  .        .    Divine 

from    the    Divine    Fatherhood.      God    is    Father.      This    is  Fatherhood— 
Christ's  own  new  name  for  Him,  and  expresses  His  relation  to  God  eternally 

^         .  Father. 

those  who  stand  in  moral  dependence  on  Him,  and  who  bear 

His  image.     But  Father  and  Son  are  terms  of  relation.^     If, 

then,   God    be   Father,   where    shall  we   find    the   Son  who 

corresponds   with  this  relation  ?       If  we  say,   men,   created 

angels,    creatures    of    any    kind,    we    are    led    to   this,   that 

Fatherhood  in  God  depended  on  there  being  a  creation.     God 

is  not  Father  simply  as  God.     Fatherhood  is  not  of  His  very 

essence.     This   could   not  easily  be  better  put  than   it  has 

been  by  Mr.  E.  H.  Hutton,  in  a  well-known    essay   on  the  r.  h.  Ilntton 

Incarnation  in  his  volume  of   Theological  Essays.     "  If  Christ  ^"  ^^''  ^'''^• 

is  the  eternal  Son  of  God,"  he  says,  "  God  is  indeed  and  in 

essence  a  Father ;  the  social  nature,  the  spring  of  love,  is  of 

the  very  essence  of  the  Eternal  Being ;  the  communication 

of  His   life,   the   reciprocation   of   His   affection   dates   from 

beyond  time — belongs,  in   other  words,  to  the  very  being  of 

God.  .  .  .  The  Unitarian   conviction   that   God  is — as   God 

and  in  His  eternal  essence — a  single,  solitary  Personality  .  .  . 

thoroughly  realised,  renders  it  impossible  to  identify  any  of 

the  social  attributes  with  His  real  essence — renders  it  difficult 

1  This  is  the  mistake  of  those  who,  in  a  Sahellian  way,  take  Father  as  the 
name  for  God  as  the  Creator,  etc.  The  Christian  idea  of  the  Father  comes  10 
birth  only  in  the  Revelation  of  the  Son.  The  terms  are  reciprocal.  See 
Note  A. 


3i8  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

not  to  regard  power  as  the  true  root  of  all  other  Divine  life. 
'    If  we  are  to  believe  that  the  Father  was  from  all  time,  we 
must  believe  that  He  was  as  a  Father, — that  is,  that  love 
was  actual  in  Him  as  well  as  potential,  that  the  communica- 
tion of  life  and  thought  and  fulness  of  joy  was  of  the  inmost 
nature  of  God,  and  never  began  to  be,  if  God  never  began 
to  be."  1 
4.  Bearing  of       4.  Finally,   this  doctrine  of  the   Trinity  has  a  profound 
^he  Trinity  on  ^^^^'      ^^   the  relation  of  God  to  the  world.     Not  without 

God  s  relation  ^ 

to  the  world,  reason  does  Scripture  connect  the  Son  with  the  creation,  and 
give  His  person  and  His  work  a  cosmical  significance.  We 
may  conceive  of  God  in  two  relations  to  the  world — either 
in  His  absolute  transcendence  over  it,  which  is  the  deistic 
conception,  or  as  immanently  identified  with  it,  which  is  the 
pantheistic  conception.  Or  we  may  conceive  of  Him  as  at 
the  same  time  exalted  above  the  world — transcending  it,  and 
yet  present  in  it  as  its  immanent  sustaining  ground,  whicli 
is  the  Christian  conception.  It  was  to  maintain  this  double 
relation  to  the  world  that,  as  we  have  seen,  Philo  conceived 
of  the  Logos  as  a  middle  term  between  God  and  the  creation, 
and  the  ISTeo-Platonists  distinguished  between  God,  the  vov<^, 

The  safeguard  aud  the  soul  of  the  WO  rid.  When  a  middle  term  is  wanting, 
we  have  either,  as  in  the  later  Judaism  and  Mohammedanism, 
an  abstract  and  immobile  Monotheism ;  or,  in  recoil  from 
this,  a  losing  of  God  in  the  world  in  Pantheism.  In  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  triune  God  we  have  the  necessary 
safeguards  against  both  of  these  errors,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  link  between  God  and  the  world  supplied  which  specula- 
tion vainly  strove  to  fiud.^  The  Christian  view  is,  therefore, 
the   true    protection   of    a   living    Theism,  which    otherwise 

^  Theological  Essays,  Srd  ed.  p.  257. 

'■^  This  important  aspect  of  the  Trinity,  as  safeguarding  the  true  idea  of  God 
in  relation  to  the  world  (His  immanence  and  transcendence)  against  the  opposite 
errors  of  Deism  and  Pantheism,  is  brought  out  with  special  fulness  by  Doruer 
in  his  discussion  of  Sabellianisra  and  Arianism,  Person  of  Christ,  i.  and  ii.,  and 
his  System  of  Doctrine,  i.  pp.  365-378.  Cf.  also  Martensen's  Do'jmatics, 
pp.  103-106  ;  Christlieb's  Modeme  Zweifel,  pp.  263-265  ;  Lux  Mundi,  pp. 
92-102,  etc. 


against  Deism 
and  Panthe- 
ism. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3 1 9 

oscillates  uncertainly  between  these  two  extremes  of  Deism 
and  Pantheism,  either  of  which  is  fatal  to  it.^ 

II.  It  is  a  special  service  of  the   doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  //.  The  Scrip- 
from  the  point  of  view  we  have  now  reached,  that  it  brin^^s  ^^''^  ^^^^ 

1    -T^    1  .         .  ,.  ,  .  brings  Crea- 

creation  and  Eedemption  into  Ime,  teaching  us  to  look  on  Hon  and  Re- 

creation  and  Eedemption  as  parts  of  one  grand  whole,  and  ^^^'^A^'^«  "^^'^ 

on  Christ,  now  exalted  to  supreme  dominion  in  the  universe,  ^^^^„^^j.^y-^;j^>. 

as  at  once  the  first-born  of  creation  and  the   first-born  from 

the  dead.2     This  thought  of  the  Son  as  the  link  between  God 

and  the  creation — which   is  so  prominent  a  thought  in  the 

New  Testament — forms  the  transition  to  the  other  subject 

on  which  I  propose  to  speak  in  this  Lecture — the  relation  of  Relation  of  the 

the  Incarnation  to  the  plan  of  the  world.      The  Eevelation  of  ^^^«^««^^'^«  *° 

the  plan  of  the 

the  Trinity  is  given  in  the  work  of  Eedemption,  but  once  world. 

given  we  can  see  that  it  has  its   bearings  also  on  the  work 

of  creation.     This  is   the  view  of  all  the  leading  writers  in 

the  New  Testament, — of  Paul,  of  John,  of  the  author  of  the 

Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, — who  go  back,  or  reason  back,  to 

an    original    agency    of    the    Son    in     the    creation    of    the 

world.^      Even    the    Apocalypse    speaks    of    Christ    as  "  the 

beginning  (apx^,  or    principle)   of    the    creation  of    God."  ^ 

But    once    started    on    this    line,    it  is    impossible    to    shut 

one's    eyes    to    the    question    which    inevitably    arises,    and 

which  has  so  frequently  been  discussed    in  the    history   of 

theology — more  keenly  than  ever  in  modern  theology,  Did 

an    Incarnation    lie    in    the    original    plan    of    the    world  ? 

Would    there    have    been    an    Incarnation    had    man    never  Would  there 

fallen?     Has   the   Incarnation  any  relation   to  the  ^^^{ovc^^l^^'^' ^'''' !'''' 

Incarnation 

ends  for  which  the  world  was  made  ?     Or  is  the  Incarna-  had  man  not 

siftftcd  ^ 

1  A  remarkable  illustration  of  Low  the  deeper  tlionglit  on  God  runs  almost 

necessarily  into  a  Trinitarian  mould  is  furnished  by  an  essay  of  Dr.  Martineau's 
on  *'A  Way  out  of  the  Trinitarian  Controversy,"  in  his  recently  published 
volume  of  Essays,  Ecclesiastical  and  Historical.  See  Note  B. — Dr.  Martineau 
as  a  Trinitarian. 

2  Col.  i.  15-18. 

3  John  i.  3 ;  1  Cor.  viii.  6 ;  Eph.  iii.  9-11 ;  Col.  i.  15-18  ;  Heb.  i.  2. 
*  Rev.  iii.  14. 


320  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

tion  connected  solely  with  the  entrance  of  sin  and  the  need 

of  Eedemption  ? 
This  question        To  raisc  a  question  of  this  kind  at  all  may  be  thought  by 
apt  to  be  nega-  ^^^^  ^q  savour  of  idle  and   presumptuous   speculation.     It 

tivedaspre-  ''  . 

sumptuous.  may  be  thought  that  it  is  one  which  the  Scripture  directly 
and  expressly  settles  in  the  negative,  in  connecting  the  In- 
carnation so  immediately  as  it  does  with  God's  great  purpose 
of  salvation  to  our  race — making  it,  indeed,  the  crowning 
proof  of  His  love  to  sinners  that  He  has  sent  His  only- 
begotten  Son  into  the  world,  that  the  world  might  live  through 
Him.^  There  are,  however,  certain  considerations  which 
should  give  us  pause  before  coming  too  hastily  to  this 
conclusion. 
But  \.  It  rises  1.  The  first  is  that  this  is  a  question  which  does  rise 
7iatura  yfrom  naturally  out  of  SO  transcendent  a  fact  as  the  Incarnation. 

the  subject ;  '' 

2.  Has  often  2.  It  is  a  qucstion  which  has  forced  itself  on  the 
pressed  Itself    jj^j^^j   of   \]^q   Church,  and  has  been  deeply  and  reverently 

on  the  mind  of    ^  ,  ,  -^  "^  "^ 

the  Church,  discusscd  by  its  ablest  thinkers  for  centuries.  It  is  a  view 
which  the  late  Principal  Fairbairn,  who  reasons  against 
it,  admits  undoubtedly  to  include  among  its  defenders 
"some  of  the  most  learned  theologians  of  the  present 
day."  2 

3.  Not  unsug-  3.  But,  mainly,  the  theory  referred  to  is  one  not  unsuggested 
failo/the^'  ^^'  certain  of  the  teachings  of  Scripture.  The  same  objection 
teachings  of  which  is  taken  to  this  —  that  it  lies  outside  the  field  of 
Scripture.        ^-^^  ^^  Eedemption — may  be  made   against   the   Scripture 

statements  as  to  the  relation  of  the  Son  to  creation ;  but  it 
is  the  grandeur  of  the  Christian  view  that,  starting  with  our 
primary  necessities  as  sinners,  it  opens  up  principles  and 
views  fertile  and  far-reaching  vastly  beyond  their  original 
application. 
The  history  It  is  Unnecessary  for  my  purpose  to  enter  at  any  length 

eques  ion.  -^^^   ^^  history  of  the   question.     A   sketch  of  it  may  be 
seen  in  Dorner's  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Jesus 

1 1  John  \v.  9. 

2  Typology  of  Scripture,  4th  ed.  i.  p,  118, 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3  2 1 

Christ}  or  in  the  finely-toned  essay  on  the  subject,  entitled 
"  The  Gospel  of  Creation,"  appended  to  Bishop  Westcott's 
Commentary  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  John.  These  writers,  with 
Archbishop  Trench  in  his  Cambridge  University  Sermons,  take 
the  view  that  the  Incarnation  was  not  conditioned  by  human 
sin ;  and  the  same  view  is  held  by  Eothe,  Lange,  Oosterzee, 
Martensen,  Ebrard,  and  a  large  number  of  other  theologians. 
The  opposite  view  is  stated  with  great  temperateness  and 
force  by  Principal  Fairbairn  in  the  fourth  edition  of  his 
valuable  work  on  the  Typology  of  Scripture.'^  It  may  perhaps 
be  found  as  the  result  of  a  brief  consideration  of  the  sub- 
ject that  the  truth  does  not  lie  exclusively  on  either  side  in 
this  profound  and  difficult  controversy,  but  that  a  higher 
point  of  view  is  possible  from  which  the  opposition  dis- 
appears. 

The  strong  point  in  favour  of  the  view  that  the  Incarna-  strong pomt 
tion  is  conditioned  solely  by  human  sin  is  the  fact  that  in  ^^"^^^^/^^ 
Scripture    it    is    represented    invariably   in  this   connection,  constant  con- 
I  need  not  quote  many  passacres  in  illustration  of  this  state-  'f ^^^^"  ^f^^^'^ 

^  ./    i  o  Incarnation 

ment.  "  The  Son  of  Man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that  with  Redemp- 
which  was  lost."  ^  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  ^^°^^- 
His  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  eternal  life."  *  "  God  sent  forth 
His  Son,  born  of  a  woman,  born  under  the  law,  that  He 
might  redeem  them  which  were  under  the  law,  that  we  might 
receive  the  adoption  of  sons."  ^  "  To  this  end  was  the  Son 
of  God  manifested,  that  He  might  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil."  ^  These  and  numerous  other  Scriptures  explicitly 
associate  Christ's  coming  with  man's  Eedemption.  Christ 
is  the  unspeakable  gift  of  God's  love  to  men  for  their 
salvation. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  argued  that,  while  the  Scripture  Passages 

which  stiggest 
^  Person  of  Christ,  iii.  pp.  361-369.     This  view  was  already  involved  in  the  a  wider  view. 

theology  of  Irenceus.     See   Dorner,   i.  p.    316;    and  Article,    "Irenseus,"  in 

Dictionary  of  Christian  Biopraphy. 

2  Vol.  i.  pp.  117-135.  =^  Luke  xix.  10.  '*  John  iii.  16. 

5  Gal.  iv.  4  (R.V.).  ^  1  John  iii.  8. 

21 


32  2  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

thus  directly  connects  the  Incarnation  with  the  work  of 
Eedemption,  it  leaves  room  for,  and  contains  passages  which 
necessarily  suggest,  a  wider  view.  Such  are  the  passages 
already  referred  to,  which  throw  light  on  the  original  rela- 
tion of  the  Son  to  creation — which  declare  that  all  things 
were  made  by  Him,  that  all  things  consist  or  hold  together 
in  Him,  that  He  is  the  first-born  of  all  creation — above  all, 
that  all  things  were  created  for  Him — that,  in  the  language 
of  Dr.  Lightfoot,  "  the  Word  is  the  final  cause  as  well  as  the 
creative  agent  of  the  universe  " — "  not  only  the  a/3%»7  but  also 
the  Te\o9  of  creation,  not  only  the  first  but  also  the  last  in 
the  history  of  the  universe."  ^  These  passages  I  shall  advert 
to  again.  It  is  further  argued — and  this  is  a  point  on  which 
great  stress  is  laid — that  an  event  of  such  tremendous 
magnitude  as  the  Incarnation  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
contingency  in  the  universe  ;  that  if  it  was  in  view  at  all,  it 
must  have  governed  the  whole  plan  of  creation ;  and  that, 
in  point  of  fact,  it  is  through  it  that,  according  to  Scripture, 
the  creation  docs  reach  its  end — not  only  redeemed  humanity, 
but  all  things,  both  in  heaven  and  in  earth,  being  ultimately 
gathered  up  into  Christ  as  Head.^  A  plan  of  such  vast  ex- 
tent cannot,  it  is  held,  be  conceived  of  as  an  afterthought, 
—  as  something  grafted  on  creation  outside  its  original 
design, — it  must  have  lain  in  the  original  design  itself. 
Difficulty  It   seems  to    me  that    the    real    source    of    difiBculty    in 

^toTab^straaa  ^^i^^^iug  ou  this  subjcct  Hcs  in  not  grasping  with  sufficient 
viexvofthe  firmucss  the  fact  that,  however  we  may  distinguish  from 
Divine  plan.  ^^^  human  point  of  view  between  parts  and  aspects  of  the 
Divine  plan,  God's  plan  is  in  reality  one,  and  it  is  but  an 
abstract  way  of  thinking  which  leads  us  to  suppose  other- 
wise. In  our  human  way  of  apprehension,  we  speak  as  if 
God  had  first  one  plan  of  creation — complete  and  rounded 
of  in  itself — in  which  sin  was  to  have  no  place ;  then,  when 
it  was  foreseen  that  sin  would  enter,  another  plan  was  in- 
troduced, which  vitally  altered  and  enlarged  the  former.     But 

1  On  Col.  i.  16,  2  Eph.  i.  10. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3  23 

if  we   take  a  sufficiently  high   point   of  view,  we  shall  be 
compelled  to  conclude,  I  think,  that  the  plan  of  the  universe  God'spk 


an  IS 


is  one,  and  that,  however  harsh  the  expression  may   sound,  ""^^  ^'^^'^ff^- 
the  foresight  and  permission  of  sin  was   from   the  first  in-  dudes  fore- 
eluded  in  it.     An   ultra- Calvinist  would   speak  of  the  fore- •''^'^^  ""''"^ 

.  p      .  T         1  permission 

ordmation  of  sm ;  I  take  lower  ground,  and  speak  only  of  of  sin. 
the  foresight  and  permission  of  sin.    Dealing  with  the  question 
on  the  largest  scale,  I  do  not  see  how  either  Calvinist  qx  Relation  of 
Arminian  can  get  away  from   this.     It   is  not  a  question  qI  ^f^^^^^/ ^^^^ 

.  Armiman  to 

how  sin  historically  or  empirically  eventuated, — that  we  this  question. 
agree  it  must  have  done  through  human  freedom, — but  it  is 
the  question  of  fact,  that  sin  is  here,  and  that  in  the  Divine 
plan  it  has  been  permitted  to  exist — that  it  has  been  taken  up 
by  God  into  His  plan  of  the  world.  His  plan  included  the 
permission  of  sin,  and  the  treatment  of  it  by  Eedemption.  In 
a  previous  Lecture,  I  referred  to  the  view  held  by  some  that 
nature  even  before  the  Fall  had  a  prophetic  reference  to  man's 
sin,  and  that  in  this  way  is  to  be  explained  much  that  is  other- 
wise mysterious  and  perplexing  in  its  arrangements.  We  have 
only  to  enlarge  our  range  of  vision  to  see  that  this  way  of 
looking  at  the  subject  applies  to  the  whole  plan  of  God.  Ic 
is  idle  to  speculate  whether,  had  there  been  no  sin,  the  plan  of 
the  universe  would  have  included  an  Incarnation  or  not.  Had 
this  been  different  everything  else  would  have  been  different 
also.  What  we  do  know  is  that  in  the  infinite  possibilities 
of  things,  God  has  chosen  to  create  a  universe  into  which  it 
was  foreseen  that  sin  would  enter ;  and  the  Incarnation  is  Creation  huHt 
a  part  of  the  plan  of  such  a  creation.  This  being  so,  it  J!^^^^  ^^f^ption 
may  very  well  be  conceived  that  the  Incarnation  was  the 
pivot  on  which  everything  else  in  this  plan  of  creation  was 
made  to  turn.  To  state  my  view  in  a  sentence — God's  plan 
is  one  ;  Christ  was  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world  ;^  and  even  creation  itself  is  built  up  on  Eedemption 
lines. 

1  Rev.  xiii.  8.     Cf.  the  interesting  remarks  in  Hugh  Miller's  Footprints  of  the 
Creator,  23rd  ed.  p.  289  (1887). 


324  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

Great  weight        We  must,  I  think,  on  this  question  allow  great  weight  to 
on  this  qties-    ^j^g  consideration  of  the  revealed  end.     The  Scriptures  speak 

tion  to  be  at-  ,  .  c-      ^^     ,^  -  - 

tachedtothe  of  an  ultimate  gathering  together  m  one  of  all  things  in 
revealed  end—  Qhrist — of  a  Summing  up  of  them  in  Him  as  Head.^  It  is 
upifjr^^^  then  to  be  asked,  Is  this  only  the  external  unification  of  a 
things  in  universe  not  originally  intended  to  be  so  unified,  but  in 
^^ '  regard  to  which   God's   original  plan  was  something  entirely 

different  ?       Or  did   it   not   lie  in   its  original  destination  ? 

The  end  of  a  thing,  we  are  to  remember,  is  that  which  in 
This  end  not  the  Diviiic  plan  determines  the  beginning  of  it.  What  a 
arbitrary  but  ^^-^^     -^  ^^  |^g  -^  -^  ^^^^^  ^^^  ^^'      ^    -^.g  original  make.     To 

one  for  which  ^  >=>     J  & 

the  universe     turn    it   from  that  end,   and   superinduce   another  upon  it, 
must  already    ^quM  be  to  some  extent  to  contradict  its  true  nature.     If 

have  been  ,  .     .  .  .  •        -i       t  •   i 

fitted.  this  IS  SO  in  general,  must  it  not  be  so  in  the  highest  degree 

when  the  end  we  speak  of  is  the  end  of  the  universe,  and 
the  plan  in  question  is  that  of  gathering  together  in  one  all 
things  in  the  Incarnate  Son.  If  such  a  destination  did  not  lie 
in  the  original  plan  of  creation,  was  it  in  the  nature  of  things 
possible  that  it  could  afterwards  be  externally  superinduced 
upon  it  ?  Then  what,  in  this  view,  becomes  of  the  statement 
that  all  things  were  made  for  Christ,  as  well  as  by  Him  ?  ^ 
Can  it  be  received  at  all,  for  such  words  go  deeper  than  a 
mere  economical  adaptation  ?  The  longer  these  questions 
are  pondered,  the  clearer  will  it  appear  that  Christ's  relation 
to  the  universe  cannot  be  thought  of  as  something  ad- 
ventitious and  contingent;  it  is  vital  and  organic.  This 
means  that  His  Incarnation  had  a  relation  to  the  whole 
plan  of  the  world,  and  not  simply  to  sin. 
Dr.  Fairbairn  Dr.  Pairbairn  himself  really  admits  all  that  is  here 
agrees^wth  contended  for,  when  he  says,  "  The  argument  derived  from 
this  view.  the  wonderful  relationship,  the  personal  and  everlasting 
union  into  which  humanity  has  been  brought  with  the 
Godhead,  as  if  the  purpose  concerning  it  should  be  turned 
into  a  kind  of  afterthought,  and  it  should  sink,  in  a 
manner  derogatory  to  its  high  and  unspeakably  important 
1  Eph.  i.  10.  2  Col.  i.  16. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION  3  2  5 

nature,  into  something  arbitrary  and  contingent,  if  placed 
in  connection  merely  with  the  Fall ;  —  such  an  argument 
derives  all  its  plausibility  from  the  limitations  and  defects 
inseparable  from  a  human  mode  of  contemplation.  To 
the  eye  of  Him  who  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning, — 
whose  purpose,  embracing  the  whole  compass  of  the  provi- 
dential plan,  was  formed  before  even  the  beginning  was 
effected, — there  could  be  nothing  really  contingent  or  un- 
certain in  any  part  of  the  process."  ^  That  is  to  say,  the 
Incarnation  is  not  to  be  placed  in  connection  merely  with 
the  Fall ;  but  the  plan  even  of  creation  had  from  the  first  a 
reference  to  an  Incarnation  for  the  sake  of  Eedemption  from 
sin,  and  the  perfecting  of  humanity. 

When,   from   this  point    of    view,   we   look    back   to   the  Harmony  of 
Scriptures,  we  find  them  in  full  harmony  with  the  ideas  now  ^"'^P^^^^  '^^^^ 

^  '  *'  Mts  View. 

indicated. 

1.  The  Scriptures    know  of    only  one  undivided  purpose  i.  The  Scrip- 
of  God, — that  eternal  purpose  which  He  purposed  in  Christ  ^^7"^  ^^^°'^  ^'^ 
Jesus,  and   which   embraces,   apparently,  both   creation   and  divided  pur- 
Eedemption.2  pose  of  God. 

2.  We  have  the  clearest  acknowledgment,  as  has  already  2.  Assert  a 
been   shown,  of  a  direct  relation  of  the  Son  to  the  work  ^1^^^'^^  ^ejation 

oj  the  Cion  as 

creation.^  It  does  not  detract  from  the  suggestiveness  of  to  creation. 
the  passages  which  declare  this  relation,  but  immensely  adds 
to  it,  that,  as  Dr.  Fairbairn  says,  the  subject  of  the  assertions 
is  the  historical  Christ,  He  by  whom  believers  have  obtained 
Eedemption,  and  in  whom  they  have  forgiveness  of  sins.  For 
the  drift  of  the  passages  is  evidently  to  bring  these  two 
things  more  completely  into  line — the  work  of  creation  and 

1  Typology  of  Scripture,  4tli  ed.  i.  p.  133. 

2  Cf.  Weiss,  Biblical  Theology  of  New  Testament,  ii.  pp.  97-100  (Eng.  trans.). 
On  Eph.  iii.  9  he  says :  *'  If  it  is  said  that  the  mystery  of  salvation  was  hid 
from  eternity  in  God,  who  created  the  universe,  it  is  indicated  by  this  character- 
istic of  God,  that  the  purpose  of  salvation  is  connected  in  the  closest  way  with 
the  plan  of  the  world,  which  began  to  be  realised  in  creation  ;  and  that  purpose 
having  been  formed  by  the  Creator  before  the  creation  of  the  world,  was  regula- 
tive even  in  its  creation." 

3  John  i.  3 ;  1  Cor.  viii.  6  ;  Col.  i.  15-18  ;  Heb.  i.  3. 


326  THE  HIGHER  CONCEPT  OF  GOD 

the  work  of  Eedemption,  and  to  show  them  to  be  parts  of 
one  Divine  plan. 

3.  Represent        3.  Still  more  significant  is  the   fact  already  insisted  on, 
Christ  as  the    i\^q^^^  j^  somc  of  the  abovo  passages,  Christ  is  not  only  repre- 

Jinal  cause  of  •         i  i        n      1  p 

Creation.  scntcd  as  the  agent  in  creation,  but  as  the  final  cause  or 
creation.  "  All  things  have  been  created  through  Him,  and 
unto  Him."  ^  He  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega,  the  First  and  the 
Last.^  Indirectly  suggestive  of  the  same  idea  are  the  passages 
which  speak  of  "  the  kingdom  prepared  for  (believers)  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world  "  ;  ^  of  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world," ^  of  Christ  as  "foreknown  indeed 
before  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  etc.^ 

4.  God's  pur-        4.  There  are  the  express  statements,  also  already  quoted, 
pose  actually    ^j  ^^^  g^^j  ^^  ^j^-^j^  g^^.g  purposc  actually  tends.     I  may 

tmification  of  here  again  avail  myself  of  the  words  of  Bishop  Lightfoot, 
all  things  in    commenting  on  the  words  "unto  Him."^     "All  things,"  he 

Christ.  °  ^ 

Bishop  Light'  says,  "  must  find  their  meeting-point,  their  reconciliation,  at 
foot  on  this,  length  in  Him  from  whom  they  took  their  rise — in  the  Word 
as  mediatorial  agent,  and  through  the  Word  in  the  Father  as 
the  primary  source.  .  .  .  This  ultimate  goal  of  the  present 
dispensation  in  time  is  similarly  stated  in  several  passages. 
Sometimes  it  is  represented  as  the  birth-throe  and  deliverance 
of  all  creation  through  Christ — as  Eom.  viii.  19,  sq.  Some- 
times it  is  the  absolute  and  final  subjection  of  universal 
nature  to  Him  —  as  1  Cor.  xv.  28.  Sometimes  it  is  the 
reconciliation  of  all  things  through  Him — as  below,  ver.  20. 
Sometimes  it  is  the  recapitulation,  the  gathering  up  in  one 
head,  of  the  universe  in  Him — as  Eph.  i.  10.  The  image 
involved  in  this  last  passage  best  illustrates  the  particular 
expression  in  the  text ;  but  all  alike  enunciate  the  same 
truth  in  different  terms.  The  Eternal  Word  is  the  goal  of 
the  universe,  as  He  was  the  starting-point.  It  must  end  in 
unity,  as  it  proceeded  from  unity;  and  the  centre  of  this 
unity  is  Christ." 

1  Col.  i.  16.  2  Rev.  i.  8,  17.  '  Matt.  xxv.  34. 

*  Rev.  xiii.  8.  «  1  Pet.  i.  20  (R.V.).  6  Col.  i.  16. 


IN  VOL  VED  IN  THE  INCARNA  TION.  3  2  7 

The  conclusion  I  reach  is  that  this  question,  Would  there  Summary  and 
have  been  an  Incarnation  but  for  sin  ?  is   one  which  rests  <^<^^^'^^^^^^*^- 
upon   a  false  abstraction.     There  is   but   one   plan   of  God 
from  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  it  includes  at  once  the 
permission  of  sin  and  the  purpose  of  Eedemption  from  it. 
It  includes,  therefore,  the   Incarnation   as  an   integral    and 
essential  part  of  that  purpose.     The  Incarnation  has,  indeed, 
immediate  reference  to  Eedemption ;  but  it  has  at  the  same 
time  a  wider  scope.     It  aims  at  carrying  through  the  plan 
of    creation,    and    conducts,    not    the    redeemed    portion    of 
humanity    alone,    but    the    universe    at    large    to    its    goal.  Thisvieiv 
There  is,  however,  another  inference  which  we  are  entitled  ''^^^f  f^^  ^ 

on  Christ  s 

to  draw — one  which  remarkably  illustrates  the  unity  of  the  Person. 
Christian  view.  If  we  rightly  interpret  that  view  as  im- 
plying that  the  Divine  plan  of  the  world  contemplates  an 
ultimate  gathering  up  of  all  things  into  one  in  Christ,  it  will 
readily  be  seen  that  this,  in  turn,  reflects  back  light  on  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  Person.  It  shows  that  we  are  right  in 
ascribing  to  Him  full  and  proper  Divinity,  not  less  than  true 
humanity.  For  it  is  manifest  that  no  other  than  a  truly 
Divine  Being  is  fitted  to  occupy  this  position  which  Scrip- 
ture, with  consentient  voice,  assigns  to  Christ.  From  the  is  in  harmony 
new  height  we  have  reached,  light  falls  back  also  on  Christ's  '^ll^J^^^^^^"^ 
place  in  the  universe,  in  remarkable  agreement  with  our 
previous  postulates  as  to  the  nature  of  man,  his  place  in 
creation,  and  the  law  of  ascent  and  development  to  which 
God's  natural  works  so  strikingly  testify.  As  the  inferior 
stages  of  existence  are  summed  up  in  man,  who  stands  at  the 
head  of  the  earthly  creation,  and  forms  a  first  link  between 
the  natural  and  the  spiritual,  so  are  all  stages  of  humanity 
summed  up  in  Christ,  who  in  His  Person  as  God-man  links 
the  creation  absolutely  with  God. 


LECTURE  VIII. 


SCfje  Incarnation  anti  Eetremptton  from  &in. 


"  In  whom  we  have  our  Eedemption  through  His  blood,  the  forgiveness 
of  our  trespasses,  according  to  the  riches  of  His  grace." — Paul. 

"The  faith  of  the  Atonement  presupposes  the  faith  of  the  Incarnation. 
It  may  be  also  said  historically  that  the  faith  of  the  Incarnation  has 
usually  had  conjoined  with  it  the  faith  of  the  Atonement.  The  great 
question  which  has  divided  men  as  to  these  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
faith  has  been  the  relation  in  which  they  stand  to  each  other — which  was 
to  be  regarded  as  primary,  which  secondary?  Was  an  Atonement  the 
great  necessity  in  reference  to  man's  salvation,  out  of  which  the  necessity 
for  an  Incarnation  arose,  because  a  Divine  Saviour  alone  could  make  an 
adequate  Atonement  for  sin? — or,  is  the  Incarnation  to  be  regarded  as 
the  primary  and  highest  fact  in  the  history  of  God's  relation  to  man,  in 
the  light  of  which  God's  interest  in  man  and  purpose  for  man  can  alone 
be  truly  seen  ? — and  is  the  Atonement  to  be  contemplated  as  taking  place 
in  order  to  the  fulfilment  of  the  Divine  purpose  for  man  which  the  In- 
carnation reveals?" — J.  M'Leod  Campbell. 

"Fourier's  void. 
And  Comte  absurd,  and  Cabet  puerile. 
Subsist  no  rules  of  life  outside  of  life. 
No  perfect  manners  without  Christian  souls  ; 
The  Christ  Himself  had  been  no  Lawgiver 
Unless  He  had  given  the  Life,  too,  with  the  Law." 

Mrs.  Browning. 


LECTUEE    VIII. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN. 

Whatever   we  may  think  of  the  Incarnation  in  its  wider  Christianity  a 
relations  to  the  plan  of  the  world  and  the  ends  of  creation  as  ^^J'^f'^'^  ^f 

^  Redemption, 

a  whole,  it  remains  the  fact  that  in  Scripture  it  is  always 
brought  into  immediate  connection  with  sin,  and  with  the 
purpose  of  God  in  Eedemption.  "  He  was  manifested  to  take 
away  sins,"  says  John,  "  and  in  Him  was  no  sin " ;  ^  and  so  say 
all  the  writers  in  the  New  Testament.  Christianity  is  thus 
distinctively  a  religion  of  Redemption,  —  a  great  Divine 
economy  for  the  recovery  of  men  from  the  guilt  and  power  of 
sin — from  a  state  of  estrangement  and  hostility  to  God — to  a 
state  of  holiness  and  blessedness  in  the  favour  of  God,  and 
of  fitness  for  the  attainment  of  their  true  destination.  It  is 
in  this  light  we  are  to  consider  it  in  the  present  Lecture. 

We  may,  therefore,  set  aside  at  once  as  alien  to  the  true  Vieivs  which 
Christian  view,  or  at  least  as  indequate  and  defective,  all  such  ^'^"•^  ^^^^  '^•^^'^^• 
representations  of  Christianity  as  see  in  its  Founder  only  a 
great  religious  teacher  and  preacher  of  righteousness ;  or 
a  great  religious  and  social  reformer,  such  as  has  often 
appeared  in  the  history  of  the  world;  or  a  great  philan- 
thropist, caring  for  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men ;  or  one 
whose  main  business  it  was  to  inoculate  men  with  a  new 
"  enthusiasm  for  humanity " ;  ^  or  a  teacher  with  a  new  ethical 
secret  to  impart  to  mankind;  or  even  such  representations 
as  see  in  Him  only  a  new  spiritual  Head  of  humanity,  whose 
work  it  is  to  complete  the  old  creation,  and  lift  the  race  to  a 

J  1  John  iii.  5  (R.V.).  2  ^^^e  Homo,  chap.  17. 


?>?>2 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


Comparison 
and  contrast 
ivith 
Buddhism. 


Special  Quest- 
ion— the  con- 
nection of 
Redemption 
with  the 
sufferings  and 
death  of 
Christ, 


higher  platform  of  spiritual  attainment,  or  help  it  a  stage 
further  onwards  to  the  goal  of  its  perfection.  Christ  is  all 
this,  but  He  is  infinitely  more.  God's  end  in  His  creation 
indeed  stands,  as  also  His  purpose  to  realise  it ;  but,  under 
the  conditions  in  which  humanity  exists,  that  end  can  only 
be  realised  through  a  Eedemption,  and  it  is  this  Eedemption 
which  Christ  pre-eminently  came  into  the  world  to  effect. 

A  comparison  has  sometimes  been  instituted  in  this  respect 
between  Christianity  and  Buddhism,  which  also  is  in  some 
sort  a  religion  of  Eedemption.  But  the  comparison  only 
brings  out  the  more  conspicuously  the  unique  and  original 
character  of  the  Christian  system.  For  whereas  Buddhism 
starts  from  the  conception  of  the  inherent  evil  and  misery 
of  existence,  and  the  Eedemption  which  it  promises  as  the 
result  of  indefinitely  prolonged  striving  through  many  suc- 
cessive lives,  is  the  eternal  rest  and  peace  of  non-being ;  the 
Christian  view,  on  the  other  hand,  starts  from  the  conception 
that  everything  in  its  original  nature  and  in  the  intent  of  its 
Creator  is  good,  and  that  the  evil  of  the  world  is  the  result 
of  wrong  and  perverted  development ;  holds,  therefore,  that 
Eedemption  from  it  is  possible  by  the  use  of  appropriate 
means.  And  Eedemption  here  includes,  not  merely  deliver- 
ance from  existing  evils,  but  restoration  of  the  Divine  like- 
ness which  has  been  lost  by  man,  and  the  ultimate  blessedness 
of  the  life  everlasting.^ 

The  chief  point  on  which  the  discussion  in  this  subject 
turns  is  the  connection  of  Eedemption  with  the  Person  and 
work  of  Christ.  Here  at  the  outset  it  is  necessary  to  guard 
against  too  narrow  an  idea  of  Eedemption,  as  if  the  saving 
work  of  Christ  were  limited  to  that  doing  and  suffering  which 
we  call  the  Atonement.  The  ends  of  Christ's  coming  into 
the  world  include  much  more  than  the  making  Atonement  for 
sin.     This  is  recognised  when  the  Church  names  three  offices 


^  "In  Buddhism  Redemption  comes  from  below;  in  Christianity  it  is  from 
above  ;  in  Buddhism  it  comes  from  man  ;  in  Christianity  it  comes  from  God." 
— Carpenter,  Permanent  Elements  of  Religion,  Introduction,  p.  34. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  333 

which  Christ  executes  as  our  Eedeemer — a  prophetic  and  a 
kingly  as  well  as  a  priestly  office.  Yet  it  is  principally  on 
the  question  of  Atonement,  or  the  manner  of  the  connection 
of  Eedemption  with  the  doing  and  suffering  of  Christ,  that 
discussion  has  been  directed,  and  it  is  to  this  subject  I  shall 
specially  address  myself.^ 

I.  It  needs  no  proof  that  all  the  New  Testament  writers  /.  Scripture 
who  refer  to  the  subject  regard  the  forgiveness  of  sins  and  *^^^f^^^°^^y  ^^ 

.  this  subject — 

the  salvation  of  men  as  connected  in  quite  a  peculiar  way  the  apostolic 
with  the  death  of  Christ ;  and  it  is  not  less  evident  that  they  w^'^«^-^^- 
do  this  because  they  ascribe  to  Christ's  death  a  sacrificial  and 
expiatory  value.  They  do  this  further,  as  every  one  must 
feel,  not  in  a  mere  poetic  and  figurative  way,  but  with  the 
most  intense  conviction  thab  they  have  really  been  redeemed 
and  reconciled  to  God  by  the  death  of  Christ  upon  the  cross. 
The  how  of  this  redemptive  transaction  most  of  them  may  not 
enter  into,  but  Paul,  at  least,  has  a  theology  on  this  subject, 
with  the  main  outlines  of  which  the  others,  judging  from  tlie 
expressions  they  use,  and  the  propitiatory  virtue  they  ascribe 
to  the  shedding  of  Christ's  blood,  must  be  held  to  agree.^ 
Happily  we  are  freed  from  the  necessity  of  dwelling  long  on  the 

1  To  prevent  ambiguity,  it  is  desirable  that  I  should  refer  here  for  a  moment 
to  the  meaning  of  this  word  "atonement."  It  is  the  eq[uivalent  of  the  New 
Testament  word  xtt.rcx.xxa.yvi,  which  is  always  translated  in  the  Revised  Version 
"reconciliation,"  and  of  the  German  words  "Versohnung"  and  "Siihnung." 
It  is  therefore  capable  of  a  wider  and  of  a  more  special  sense.  In  both  cases  it 
refers  to  the  "reconciliation"  or  " making-at-one "  of  mankind  and  God,  and 
in  New  Testament  usage  imjjlies  that  this  reconciliation  is  effected  through  ex- 
piation or  propitiation.  But  in  the  one  case  it  denotes  the  actual  state  of  recon- 
ciliation with  God  into  which  believers  are  introduced  through  Christ,  whose 
work  is  then  regarded  as  the  means  to  this  end  ;  whereas  in  the  other  it  denotes 
the  reconciling  act  itself — mankind  being  viewed  as  objectively  reconciled  to 
God  in  the  work  or  death  of  His  Son,  which  is  the  sense  the  term  ^rdinarily 
bears  when  we  speak  of  the  Atonement.  Dr.  Hodge  would  discard  this  term 
altogether  because  of  its  ambiguity,  and  substitute  for  the  latter  meaning  of  it 
the  term  "satisfaction." — Systematic  Theology,  ii.  p.  469.  But  "satisfac- 
tion "  is  too  narrow  and  exclusively  forensic  a  term  to  express  all  that  is  implied 
in  the  reconciling  act. 

2  The  passages  may  be  seen  classified  in  Dale  on  The  Atonement,  or  in  Pro- 
fessor Crawford's  Doctrine  of  Holy  Scripture  respecting  the  Atonement. 


334  THE  INCARNA TION  AND 

apostolic  testimony  on  this  subject,  for  the  same  reason  which 
I  gave  when  speaking  of  the  Person  of  Christ — namely,  that 
impartial  exegesis  and  Biblical  theology  practically  grant  to 
us  all  that  we  assert.  Apart  from  such  occasional  specula- 
tions as,  e.g.,  Holsten's,  that,  in  Paul's  view,  sin  is  identical 
with  the  body  or  "  flesh  "  of  Christ,  and  that  the  slaying  of 
Christ's  body  or  flesh  denotes  the  slaying  of  sin,^  it  will  be 
found  that  the  descriptions  given  of  the  teaching  of  the 
Epistles  as  to  the  work  of  Eedemption  do  not  differ  much 
from  those  met  with  in  our  ordinary  books  of  theology. 
The  accounts  given  us,  e.g.,  by  Baur  or  Eeuss  or  Pfleiderer,  or 
even  by  Martineau^ — not  to  speak  of  an  exegete  like  Meyer, 
or  a  Biblical  theologian  like  Weiss — of  the  doctrine  of  Paul 
on  Eedemption,  is  what,  with  very  slight  exception,  any  of 
us  could  accept.  The  same  is  true  of  the  other  New  Testa- 
ment witnesses — of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  of  Peter,  of 
Eevelation,  of  the  Epistles  of  John.  With  differences  of  stand- 
point and  strong  individual  characteristics,  it  is  acknowledged 
that  they  teach  a  fundamentally  identical  doctrine  of  Eedemp- 
tion from  the  guilt  and  power  of  sin  through  Christ,  and 
particularly  that  they  ascribe  to  His  death  a  sacrificial  or 
propitiatory  virtue.  To  get  rid  of  the  attribution  of  this 
view  to  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  Dr.  Martineau  has 
to  assume,  in  face  of  all  probability  and  evidence,  that  the 
Eirst  Epistle  of  John  is  not  by  the  same  author  as  the 
Gospel.^ 
Does  Christ's  Morc  important  is  the  question  which  the  newer  forms  of 
^withthafT  controversy  press  upon  us — whether  Christ's  doctrine  on  this 
the  apostles  ?  subjcct  is  the  samc  as  that  of  His  apostles  ?  We  have  a 
^whkhthuis  *^®ology  0^  propitiation  in  the  Epistles  —  that  is  admitted ; 
contested.         but   havc   WO   anything  of   the   same   kind  in   Christ's   own 

1  Cf.  Weiss,  Biblical  Theology  of  Neio  Testament,  i.  p.  422  (Eng.  trans.). 

-  Cf.  Seat  of  Authority,  pp.  478,  479.  Baur's  views  may  be  seen  in  his 
Pavlus,  pp.  537-547  ;  those  of  Reuss  in  his  Hist,  of  Christ.  Theol.  in  the 
Apost.  Age,  ii.  pp.  68-74  (Eng.  trans.)  ;  those  of  Lipsius  in  his  Dogmatik,  p. 
498  ;  those  of  Pfleiderer  in  his  Urchristenthum,  pp.  222-242. 

^  Seat  of  Authority,  p.  509. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  335 

words?  Was  not  the  gospel  preached  in  Galilee  a  much 
simpler  thing  than  the  theological  gospel  preached  by  Paul, 
or  contained  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  and  is  it  not  free 
from  every  trace  of  this  cumbrous  machinery  of  Atonement,  or 
of  pardon  on  the  ground  of  the  suffering  and  death  of  another? 
Where,  it  is  asked,  is  there  any  vestige  of  this  doctrine  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  or  in  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  ? 
Is  this  doctrine  not  an  aftergrowth,  the  result  of  the  running 
of  the  Divine  thoughts  of  the  Master,  and  of  the  impression 
produced  by  His  life  and  death,  into  the  moulds  of  Jewish 
sacrificial  conceptions  which  had  no  real  affinity  with  them, 
and  have  indeed  served  to  overlay  and  obscure  them  to  the 
apprehension  of  all  subsequent  generations  ? 

If  the  case  were  as  this  objection  represents  it,  I  grant  that  insufficiency 
it  would  have  very  serious  consequences  for  our  faith.     If  the  ^•'^  ^^t 

•^  ■'■  grounds. 

apostles  of  Christ — the  very  persons  chosen  by  Him  to  com- 
municate His  doctrine  to  the  world,  and  to  whom  He  promised 
the  illumination  of  His  Spirit  for  this  very  end — could  so 
seriously  misunderstand  and  pervert  His  doctrine  on  this 
essential  point,  I  do  not  know  what  credit  we  should  be  able 
to  attach  to  them  on  any  point  on  which  they  profess  to 
represent  the  mind  of  Christ.  Dr.  Dale  has  argued  this  point 
so  strongly  in  his  book  on  the  Atonement  ^  that  I  do  not  need 
to  do  more  than  refer  to  it.  It  is  not  for  us,  it  is  for  the 
objector  to  explain,  how  the  guides  and  leaders  of  the  apos- 
tolic Church  should  come  with  this  singular  unanimity  to 
shift  the  centre  of  gravity  in  Christ's  gospel  from  where  He 
Himself  had  placed  it,  and  so  to  mislead  the  world  as  to  the 
essentials  of  their  Master's  teaching.  But  the  question 
remains — Have  they  done  so?  And  this  is  certainly  not 
proved  from  the  circumstance  that,  in  Christ's  own  teaching,  the 
doctrine  of  Atonement  is  not  brought  forward  with  the  same 
explicitness  as  it  is  in  the  apostolic  writings.  That  Christ 
took  up  a  central  position  in  relation  to  the  truths  which  He 
proclaimed,  that  He  invited  men  to  faith  in  Himself  as  the 

^  Lecture  IV. 


336 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


Proof  that 
Christ 
attached  a 
redemptive 
significance 
to  His  death. 


condition  of  their  participation  in  the  blessings  of  the  king- 
dom, that  He  promised  the  fullest  satisfaction  in  the  approach- 
ing kingdom  to  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  the  spiritually 
needy,  that  He  declared  that  it  was  by  their  relation  to  Him 
that  men  would  be  ultimately  judged, — this  lies  upon  the 
surface  of  the  Gospels.  But  that  He  should  have  preached 
to  the  Galilean  multitudes  truths  which,  on  any  hypothesis, 
could  only  be  intelligible  after  His  death  and  resurrection 
had  taken  place, — that  He  should  have  done  this  before  He 
had  even  publicly  proclaimed  Himself  to  be  the  Messiah, — 
this  is  to  ask  what  in  reason  we  are  not  entitled  to  expect. 
Before  there  could  be  any  preaching  of  an  Atonement,  there 
must  be  an  Atonement  to  preach.  I  grant,  however,  that  if 
the  apostolic  gospel  really  represents  the  truth  about  Christ's 
work,  the  facts  of  His  early  manifestation  ought  to  bear  this 
out.  They  must  be  such,  at  least,  that  the  apostolic  gospel 
is  felt  to  be  the  natural  key  to  them.  In  reality  they  are 
much  more ;  for,  taken  in  their  entirety,  they  point  unmistak- 
ably to  just  such  a  view  as  the  apostolic  doctrine  gives,  and 
explain  to  us,  what  else  would  be  a  complete  enigma,  how 
such  a  doctrine  could  arise. 

It  is  significant  that  the  most  unbiassed  modern  inquiry 
into  Christ's  teaching  recognises  that  He  attributed  a  redemp- 
tive virtue  to  His  death,  and  connected  it  directly  with  the 
forgiveness  of  sins.^  Eitschl  also  acknowledges  that  Christ 
first,  and  after  Him  the  oldest  witnesses,  connect  Eedemption 
or  forgiveness,  not  with  His  prophetic  office,  but  much  more 
with  the  fact  of  His  death.^  Taking  the  testimony  of  the 
Gospels  as  a  whole,  I  think  it  is  exceedingly  strong.  It  is 
remarkable  that  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  the  most  spiritual  of 
the  four,  we  have  both  the  earliest  and  the  clearest  state- 
ments of  the  fact  that  Christ's  death  stood  in  direct  relation 
to  the  salvation  of  the  world.     I  refer  to  such  passages  as 

^  Cf.  Baldensperger's  Selbstbewiisstsein  Jesu,  2nd  ed.  pp.  153-155  ;  Wendt's 
Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  pp.  526-530 ;  Schmoller's  Die  Lehre  vom  Beiche  Gottes,  pp. 
144,  145,  etc. 

2  Unterricht,  p.  36. 


REDEMPTION  EROM  SIN,  337 

the  Baptist's  utterance,  "Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,  which 
taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world"  ;i  Christ's  words  to 
Mcodemus,  "As  Moses  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilder- 
ness, even  so  must  the  Son  of  Man  be  lifted  up,"  2  etc. ;  and  the 
sayings  in  chap.  vi.  about  giving  His  flesh  for  the  life  of  the 
world.3  In  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  while  in  one  saying  at  least 
of  the  earlier  ministry  there  is  a  premonition  of  the  cross,*  it 
was  not  till  after  Peter's  great  confession  that  Jesus  began  to 
speak  explicitly  to  the  disciples  of  His  approaching  sufferings 
and  death.^  Then  we  have  many  utterances  declaring  the  neces- 
sity of  His  death,  and  such  a  saying  throwing  light  upon  its 
character,  as,  "  For  verily  the  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom 
for  many."  6  On  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  it  was  the 
decease  which  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem  which  was 
the  subject  of  discourse.^  But  the  clearest  expression  of  all 
prior  to  His  death  is  His  solemn  utterance  at  the  institution 
of  the  Supper,  when,  taking  the  sacramental  bread  and  wine, 
He  said,  "  This  is  My  body ;  this  is  My  blood  of  the  Cove- 
nant, which  is  shed  for  many,  unto  remission  of  sins."  ^  To 
this  must  be  added  the  instruction  which  the  disciples  are 
recorded  to  have  received  after  the  resurrection.  On  one 
remarkable  occasion  we  read  that  Christ  said  to  them,  "  0 
foolish  men,  and  slow  of  heart  to  believe  in  all  that  the 
prophets  have  spoken !  Behoved  it  not  the  Christ  to  suffer 
these  things,  and  to  enter  into  His  glory.  And  beginning  from 
Moses  and  from  all  the  prophets,  He  interpreted  to  them  in 
all  the  Scriptures  the  things  concerning  Himself."  ^  And  at  a 
later  meeting  with  the  eleven,  "  These  are  My  words  which 
I  spake  unto  you,  while  I  was  yet  with  you,  how  that  all 
things  must  needs  be  fulfilled,  which  are  written  in  the  law 

1  John  i.  29.     Marg.  in  R.V.,  "beareth  the  sin."    Cf.  Dorner,  System  of 
Doctrine,  iii.  p.  415. 

2  John  ill.  15.  3  Vers.  51-56. 

4  Matt.  ix.  15.  5  Mark  viii.  31,  ix.  12,  31,  x.  33,  34. 

«  Mark  x.  45  (R.  V. ).  7  Luke  ix.  31. 

8  Matt.  xxvi.  26,  28  (R.V.).  ^  Luke  xxiv.  25-27  (R.V.). 

22 


338 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


Grounds  on 
which  the 
apostolic 
Church  pro- 
ceeded. 

I.   The  object- 
ive facts  of 
ChHsfs 
death,  resur- 
rection, etc. 
These  needed 
an  explanu" 
Hon, 


2.   Christ's 
sayings  on  the 
meaning  and 
necessity  of 
His  death. 


of  Moses,  and  the  prophets,  and  the  psalms  concerning  Me. 
Then  opened  He  their  mind,  that  they  might  understand  the 
Scriptures ;  and  He  said  unto  them.  Thus  it  is  written,  that 
the  Christ  should  suffer  and  rise  again  from  the  dead  on  the 
third  day,  and  that  repentance  and  remission  of  sins  should 
be  preached  in  His  name  unto  all  the  nations,  beginning  from 
Jerusalem."  ^  These  passages  are  invaluable  as  giving  us  a 
clue  to  the  clearness  and  decision  of  the  subsequent  apostolic 
doctrine.  What  these  lengthened  interpretations  of  Jesus 
included  we  cannot  of  course  tell,  but  they  must  have 
embraced  much  light  on  the  significance  of  His  death ;  and 
for  the  nature  of  that  light  we  are  entitled  to  look  to  the 
Spirit-guided  utterances  of  the  apostles  who  received  it. 

The  apostolic  Church,  therefore,  was  not  left  without  guid- 
ance in  its  construction  of  the  doctrine  of  Eedemption,  any 
more  than  in  its  construction  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  Person. 
It  had  various  groups  of  facts  to  lead  it  to  a  conclusion. 

1.  It  had  the  objective  facts  themselves  of  Christ's  death, 
resurrection,  and  subsequent  exaltation  to  heaven.  Holding 
fast  as  it  did  to  the  Messiahship  and  Divine  Sonship  of  Jesus, 
it  could  not  but  find  the  death  of  Christ  a  dark  and  per- 
plexing-problem, till  it  grasped  the  solution  in  the  thought  of 
a  Divine  necessity  for  that  death  for  the  accomplishment  of 
the  Messianic  salvation.  With  this  had  to  be  taken  the  fact 
of  Christ's  own  command  that  repentance  and  remission  of 
sins  should  be  preached  in  His  name  to  all  nations.  Behind 
this  again  were  all  the  facts  of  His  earthly  life,  with  its 
Kevelations  of  Messianic  power  and  grace,  and  its  not  less 
wonderful  self-abasement  and  sorrow. 

2.  There  were  the  sayings  of  Christ,  above  referred  to, 
which  threw  light  upon  the  meaning  and  necessity  of  His 
sufferings  and  death.  These,  in  the  new  illumination  of 
the  Spirit,  would  be  earnestly  pondered,  and  are  sufficient  to 
explain  all  the  forms  in  which  Christ's  death  came  to  be 
regarded  by  them. 

^  Luke  xxiv.  44-47. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  339 

3.  There  was  an  earlier  Eevelation  with  which  the  new  3.  The  teach- 
economy  stood  in  the  closest  relations,  and  to  which  Christ  ^^'^^-^^'^' ^'''^ 

Covenant  as 

Himself  had  directed  His  disciples  for  instruction  regarding  thriving  light 
Himself.     In  many  ways  also  this  old  covenant  aided  them  ^'^  ^^^^^^'^ 

auork. 

to  a  fuller  comprehension  of  the  meaning  of  the  sufferings 
and  death  of  Christ. 

(1)  There  were  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament, —  (i)  its  pro- 
foremost  among  them  that  wonderful  prophecy  of  the  Servant  ^^.f^^"^""'^"^^' 
of  Jehovah   in   Isaiah  liii.,   to   whose   undeserved   sufferings, 
lovingly    and    submissively    borne,    an    expiatory    virtue    is 
expressly    ascribed.       "  There    is    no    exegete,"    says    Pro- 
fessor   G.    A.    Smith,   "  but    agrees    to   this   ...   all    agree 

to  the  fact  that  by  Himself,  or  by  God,  the  Servant's  life 
is  offered  an  expiation  for  sin  —  a  satisfaction  to  the  law 
of  God."  1 

(2)  There  was  the  work  of  the  law  in  men's  hearts,  be-  (2)  The  Law 
netting    in    them    the    sense    of    sin,    and,  in   virtue   of  its  ^^  ^^^^^^^^ « 

*='*='  sense  o/stn, 

propaedeutic  character,  creating  the  deep  feeling  of  the  need  and  feeling  0/ 
of  Eedemption.      It  is  with  this  consciousness  of  the  want  oi^^J^^^^^f 

Atonement, 

righteousness  wrought  by  the  law,  and  the  consequent  feeling 
of  the  need  of  Eedemption,  that  Paul's  doctrine  specially 
connects  itself. 

(3)  There  was  the  sacrificial  system  of  the  Old  Testament.  (3)  The 
This  was  the  remaining  key  in  the  hands  of  the  early  Church  ^^^^^^^^^ 

°        •'  *'  economy. 

to  unlock  the  significance  of  Christ's  death.  If  the  law 
created  the  sense  of  sin,  it  was  the  sacrificial  system  which 
created  the  idea  of  Atonement.  This,  in  turn,  is  the  thought 
to  which  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  specially  attaches  itself. 
When,  therefore,  exception  is  taken  to  the  apostles  casting 
their  ideas  into  the  moulds  of  Jewish  sacrificial  conceptions, 
we  have  rather  to  ask  whether  the  economy  of  sacrifice  was 
not  Divinely  prepared  for  this  very  end,  that  it  might  fore- 
shadow the  one  and  true  Sacrifice  by  which  the  sin  of  the 
world  is  taken  away,  and  whether  this  is  not  in  accordance 
with  all  the  data  at  our  disposal  ? 

1  TAe  Booh  of  Isaidhy  ii.  p.  364. 


340  THE  INCARNA TION  AND 

II.  Expiana-       11.  Assuming,  however,  that  all  this  is  granted, — that  it  is 
Hon  of  the       conceded   that   the   apostles  teach   Eedemption  through   the 

redemptive  .         ,  . 

significance      death   of  Christ,  and  that   there  is   no  discrepancy  in   this 
of  Christ's       respect  between  their  teaching  and  that  of  Christ  Himself — 

sufferings  and  i      .  p      -i  •  i  •   -i 

death—  we  are  still  far  from  a  solution  or  the  many  questions  which 

Theories  of  jjj^y  be  raised  in  regard  to  this  great  cardinal  doctrine. 
Indeed  our  real  task  is  only  commencing.  Those  who  think 
that,  on  the  basis  of  Scripture  passages,  a  ready-made  theory 
of  Atonement  lies  to  our  hand,  have  only  to  consider  the 
slow  and  gradual  process  by  which  the  doctrine  of  the  Church 
has  been  built  up  to  its  present  form,  to  become  convinced  of 
the  contrary.  Christ's  death  is  a  sacrifice,  but  in  what  sense 
is  it  a  sacrifice  ?  It  is  a  propitiation  for  our  sins ;  but  what 
are  the  elements  in  it  which  give  it  value  as  a  propitiation  ? 
It  is  connected  with  the  remission  of  sins ;  but  what  is  the 
nature  of  this  connection?  These  are  questions  as  keenly 
discussed  to-day  as  ever,  and  we  cannot  avoid  considering 
them  in  connection  with  the  deep  and  difficult  problems 
which  they  raise. 
Legitimacy  of  Now  I  for  One  do  not  think  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Church 
^th'^^^\^^t  ^^  ^^^^  content — as  some  express  it — with  the  fact  of  the 
Atonement,  without  further  inquiring  as  deeply  as  we  can  into 
its  nature.  I  cannot  believe  that  any  doctrine  of  Scripture 
— least  of  all  the  doctrine  of  Atonement,  which  is  represented 
in  Scripture  as  the  Eevelation  of  the  innermost  heart  of  God 
to  man,  the  central  and  supreme  manifestation  of  His  love  to 
the  world — was  ever  meant  to  lie  like  a  dead- weight  on  our 
understanding,  incapable  of  being  in  any  degree  assimilated 
by  our  thought.  Certain  it  is  that  any  doctrine  which  is 
treated  in  this  way  will  not  long  retain  its  hold  on  men's 
convictions,  but  will  sooner  or  later  be  swept  out  of  the  way 
as  a  piece  of  useless  theological  lumber.  The  Atonement,  as 
Dr.  John  M'Leod  Campbell  was  fond  of  putting  it,  must  be 
capable  of  being  seen  in  its  own  light.  I  grant,  indeed,  that 
the  fact  of  the  Atonement  is  greater  than  all  our  apprehensions 
of  it.    We  are  here  in  the  very  holy  of  holies  of  the  Christian 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  341 

faith,  and  our  treatment  of  the  subject  cannot  be  too  reveren- 
tial.    The  one  thing  a  'priori  certain  about  the  Atonement  is 
that  it  has  heights  and  depths,  lengths  and  breadths,  greater 
than  any  line  of  ours  can  fathom  or  span.     It  is  this  which  Elements  of 
should  make  us  patient  of  what  are  called  theories  of  the  ^7'^''^/'^  ^^^ 

theories. 

Atonement.  I  do  not  know  any  one  of  these  theories  of 
which  it  can  justly  be  said  that  it  is  unmixed  error, — which 
has  not  rather  in  the  heart  of  it  a  portion  of  the  truth, — 
which  does  not  apprehend  some  side  or  aspect  of  the  Atone- 
ment which  other  theories  neglect,  or  have  thrust  into  the 
background.  Instead,  therefore,  of  being  too  keen  to  scent 
error  in  these  theories,  our  wiser  plan  will  be  to  be  ever 
on  the  outlook  for  an  enlargement  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
truth  through  them. 

If   I   might  indicate  in   a   word   what  I  take  to  be  the  Tendency  of 
tendency  of  the  modern  treatment  of  the  Atonement,  I  would  ^^^  ^!^^  ^^' 

''  ctisstons  on 

say  that  it  consists  in  the  endeavour  to  give  a  spiritual  inter-  this  subject— 
pretation  to   the  great  fact  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  our  ^^^^^^f^  ^^«- 

.  .    .  nect  the  Atone- 

Eedemption, — not  necessarily  to  deny  its  judicial  aspect,  for  mettt  with 
that,  I  take  it,  will  be  found  impossible, — but  to  remove  from  ^P^^^^^^^ 

laws. 

it  the  hard,  legal  aspect  it  is  apt  to  assume  when  treated  as  a 
purely  external  fact,  without  regard  to  its  inner  spiritual 
content;  and,  further,  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the 
spiritual  laws  and  analogies  which  obtain  in  other  spheres. 
There  is  the  attempt  (1)  to  find  spiritual  laws  which  will 
make  the  Atonement  itself  intelligible ;  and  (2)  to  find 
spiritual  laws  which  connect  the  Atonement  with  the  new 
life  which  springs  from  it.  I  may  add  that  this  is  a  depart- 
ment of  the  truth  in  which  I  think  that  the  theology  of 
our  own  country  has  rendered  better  service  to  the  Christian 
view  than  the  theology  of  the  continent. 

In  accordance  with  my  plan,  I  am  led  to  study  this  subject  The  Atone- 
of  Atonement  through  Christ  especially  from  the  point  of  view  ^^l^2red7rom 
of  the  Incarnation.     There  is  an  advantage  in  this  method,  the  point  of 
for  as,  on  the  one  hand,  we  see  how  the  Atonement  rises  ^^^^  '^^^^f 

*  '  Incarnation. 

naturally  out  of  the  Incarnation,  so  that  the  Son  of  God  could 


342  THE  INCARNATION  AND 

not  appear  in  our  nature  without  undertaking  such  a  work 
as  this  term  denotes;  so,  on  the  other,  we  see  that  the 
Incarnation  is  itself  a  pledge  and  anticipation  of  reconcilia- 
tion. It  is  evident  that  such  an  event  could  never  have 
taken  place  had  there  been  no  purpose  or  possibility  of 
salvation;  had  humanity  been  a  hopelessly  ruined  and  re- 
jected race.  In  principle,  therefore,  the  Incarnation  is  the 
declaration  of  a  purpose  to  save  the  world.  It  is  more :  it  is 
itself  a  certain  stage  in  that  reconciliation,  and  the  point  of 
departure  for  every  other.  In  the  Incarnation,  God  and  man 
are  already  in  a  sense  one.  In  Christ  a  pure  point  of  union 
is  established  with  our  fallen  and  sin-laden  humanity,  and 
this  carries  with  it  the  assurance  that  everything  else  that  is 
necessary  for  the  complete  recovery  of  the  world  to  God 
Theorieswhich  will  not  be  lacking.  Theories,  therefore,  have  never  been 
emphasise  this  ^^nting  in  the  Church  which,  in  one  form  or  another,  lay  the 

point  of  view.  ^  " 

stress  in  Eedemption  on  the  simple  fact  of  the  Incarnation. 
As  Dr.  Hodge  has  expressed  it,  "  The  Incarnation  itself,  the 
union  of  the  Divine  and  human  natures,  was  the  great  saving 
act.  Christ  redeems  us  by  what  He  is,  not  by  what  He 
does."  ^  Germs  of  such  theories  appear  in  some  of  the  early 
Church  fathers,  e.g.  in  Irenseus.^  They  reappeared  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  at  the  Eeformation.^  They  have  a  modern  analogue 
in  the  theories  of  the  Hegelian  school,  which  in  the  realised 
unity  of  God  and  humanity  in  Christ,  see  the  prototype  of 
that  unity  of  God  and  man  which  is  to  be  accomplished  in 
the  race  in  general.  The  thought  of  the  identity  of  Incar- 
nation and  Eedemption  colours  modern  theology  in  many 
other  ways.*     These  theories  are  obviously  defective,  if  meant 

^  System.  Theology,  ii.  p.  585. 

2  ^.g.,  "  To  this  end  the  Word  of  God  was  made  Man,  and  He  who  was  the 
Son  of  God  became  the  Son  of  Man,  that  man,  having  been  taken  into  the 
Word,  and  receiving  the  adoption,  might  become  the  Son  of  God."— Iren.  iii. 
19.  Harnack  finds  a  germ  of  this  doctrine  in  Justin  Martyr. — Dogmenge- 
schickie,  i.  p.  459.  There  are,  however,  other  elements  in  the  teaching  on 
Redemption  of  all  these  Fathers. 

^  E.g.  Osiander,  Schwenkfeld. 

*  E.g.,  in  the  school  of  Erskine  of  Linlathen.     Cf.  Murphy,  Scientifc  Basis 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN,  343 

to  exhaust  the  whole  Scripture  doctrine  on  the  subject ;  but 
they  have  their  point  of  truth  in  this,  that  the  perfect  union 
of  the  Word  with  humanity  is  already  a  reconciliation  of  the 
race  with  God  in  principle,  and  is,  besides,  the  medium  by 
which  a  new  Divine  life  is  introduced  into  humanity — a  view 
with  which  the  theology  of  John  specially  connects  itself. 

In  further  considering  the  theories  on  this  subject,  it  will  Three  points 
be   convenient   to  observe   that   all   theories  of   Eedemption  ^^^^^f^J^ 

^  granted  m  all 

within    Christian    limits  agree  in   taking   for  granted  three  Christian 
things  as  included  under  this  term  : —  theories  of 

,  Redemption — 

1.  There  is  the  removal  of  guilt,  or  of  the  consciousness  of  i.  Removal  of 

guilt,  which  carries  with  it  the  sense  of  the  Divine  forgiveness,  g^i^^— forgive- 
ness, 

2.  There  is  the  breaking  down  of  the  actual  enmity  of  the  2.  Breaking 

heart  and  will  to  God,  and  the  turning  of  the  sinner  from  ^f^^  ^f 
dead  works  to  serve  the  living  and  true  God.  enmity. 

3.  There  is  the  taking  up  of  the  believer  into  the  positive  3.  Fellowship 
fellowship  of  eternal  life  with  Christ,  and  into  the  conscious-  '^V^f^^^^^ 
ness  of  a  Divine  Sonship. 

These  are  the  immediate  effects,  from  which  others  follow  in 
a  changed  relation  to  the  world,  gradual  progress  in  holiness, 
and  deliverance  at  death  and  in  eternity  from  all  natural 
and  spiritual  evils. 

Accordingly  now  as  theories  relate  themselves  predomin-  Theories  differ 
antly  to  one  or  other  of  these  points  of  view,  they  present  a  ^^J;^/^^'^^^ 

different  aspect.  one  or  other  of 

1.  Theories  which  attach  themselves  by  preference  to  the  ^'^.^'^^^''''^^^-^ 

•^    ^  view — 

last  point  of  view — that  of  fellowship — are   apt   to   regard  i.  Redemption 
Christ  chiefly  as  the  type  of  the  normal  relation  of  God  to  ^f  reception 

J  J  ^  .       .  into  Christ  s 

humanity,  and  to  subordinate  the  other  aspects  of  His  life  andy^//^^^/^^^. 
work  to  this. 


of  Faith  (a  disciple  of  this  school) :  "  I  do  not  speak  of  the  Incarnation  as  one 
act  and  the  Atonement  as  another — they  are  one  and  the  same  Divine  act, 
which  in  itself  is  called  the  Incarnation,  and  in  its  results  is  called  the  Atone- 
ment. The  act  of  the  Son  of  God  in  becoming  a  partaker  of  our  nature  is  the 
Incarnation  ;  the  result  of  this  act,  in  making  us  partakers  of  the  Divine 
nature,  is  the  Atonement  or  Reconciliation  ;  though  these  latter  two  words  are 
both  of  them  inadequate." — P.  384. 


344 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


2.    Christ's 
work  as  the 
supreme 
moral 
dynamic. 


3.  Christ's 
ivork  as 
expiation. 


More  detailed 
examinatiott 
of  theories — 


2.  Theories  which  attach  themselves  to  the  second  point  of 
view — the  breaking  down  of  the  sinner's  enmity — regard 
Christ's  work  as  a  great  moral  dynamic — "  the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation,"^  the  effect  of  which  is  to  break  down  the 
natural  distrust  of  the  heart  towards  God,  and  to  melt  the 
sinner  into  penitence, — "  to  bring  men,"  as  Bushnell  expresses 
it,  "  out  of  their  sins,  and  so  out  of  their  penalties."  ^ 

3.  Theories  which  attach  themselves  to  the  first  point  of 
view — the  removal  of  guilt — lay  special  stress  on  the  relation 
of  Christ's  work  to  the  Divine  righteousness,  and  view  it 
specially  as  an  expiation. 

A  perfect  theory,  if  we  could  obtain  it,  would  be  one  which 
did  justice  to  all  these  standpoints,  and  presented  them  in 
their  scriptural  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  Person  and 
work  of  the  Eedeemer. 

Without  adhering  rigidly  to  the  scheme  here  indicated, 
which  would  be  indeed  impossible,  seeing  that  the  different 
theories  cross  each  other  at  innumerable  points,  I  shall  now 
glance  at  the  chief  standpoints  represented  in  these  theories, 
and  try  to  show  that  they  gradually  lead  us  up  to  a  view 
which  embraces  them  all,  and  is  in  harmony  with  the  full 
Scripture  testimony. 

1.  We  have  a  class  of  theories  which  start  from  the  idea 
of  fellowship,  based  on  the  unique  relation  which  Christ 
sustains  to  the  race  as  perfect,  archetypal  Man — a  relation 
expressed  in  the  title — "  Son  of  Man."  The  point  on  which 
stress  is  laid  here  is  the  solidarity  between  Christ  and  the 
race  which  He  came  to  save ;  a  true  thought  in  itself,  and 
one  which  takes  the  place  in  modern  theology  of  the  older 
way  of  looking  at  Christ's  relation  to  the  race  as  purely 
federal  or  official.  The  typical  example  of  this  class  of 
Representative  i\iQoxiQ^  is  Schlcicrmacher's.  With  the  idea  of  fellow- 
Christ.  ^^^P   Schleiermacher    combines   that   of    representation.     The 

essence    of   Eedemption,    in    his    view,   consists    in    deliver- 
ance  from   the   miserable   contradiction  of   flesh   and  spirit, 

■^  Rom.  i,  16.  2  YicaiHous  Sacrijice,  p.  7. 


I.    Theories  of 
fellowship — 
Schleier- 
macher, etc. 


REDEMPTION  FR  OM  SIN.  345 

through  being  taken  up  into  the  fellowship  of  Christ's  life  of 
holiness  and  blessedness.^  As  standing  in  this  fellowship  with 
Christ,  believers  are  the  objects  of  the  love  of  God,  who  looks 
upon  them  in  Him.  "  Christ,"  he  says,  "  purely  represents  us 
before  God  in  virtue  of  His  own  perfect  fulfilment  of  the 
Divine  will,  to  which,  through  His  life  in  us,  the  impulse  is 
active  in  us  also,  so  that  in  this  connection  with  Him  we  also 
are  objects  of  the  Divine  good-pleasure."  ^  In  thus  speaking  of 
Christ  in  His  sinless  perfection  as  representing  believers  before 
God,  it  might  appear  as  if  Schleiermacher  held  a  doctrine  of 
imputation, — indeed,  he  says  this  is  the  true  meaning  of  that 
much  misunderstood  phrase,  the  imputation  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  Christ.^  When,  however,  we  probe  the  matter  a  little 
further,  his  meaning  is  found  to  be  nothing  more  than  this — 
that  God  already  sees  in  the  initial  stage  of  the  believer's 
holiness  the  germ  of  his  subsequent  full  perfection, — of  that 
perfection  of  which  Christ  is  the  pattern  or  type, — and  views 
him  in  the  light  of  that  ideal.*  This  thought  of  a  justification 
through  germinal  holiness,  is  a  favourite  one  with  writers  of  a 
mystical  and  speculative  tendency ;  but  it  manifestly  shifts 
the  ground  of  acceptance  from  Christ  for  us  to  Christ  in 
us,  and  treats  objective  reconciliation  as  unnecessary.^  In 
Schleiermacher's  theory,  accordingly,  as  in  those  of  a  kindred  Schhier- 
type,  Christ's  sufferings  and  death  have  only  a  very  ^^"^- "^^fclns/s'^ 
ordinate  place.  These  sufferings  arose  from  His  being  in  a  sufferings,  etc. 
world  where  evils  are  a  necessary  result  of  sin,  and  from  His 
fellow-feeling  with  us  in  our  sins.  They  may  therefore  be 
called  substitutionary,  as  endured  by  a  sinless  Being  for  the 
sake  of  others,  but  they  are  in  no  sense  satisfactory  or 
expiatory.  They  are  connected  with  our  Kedemption  as 
teaching  us  to  feel  that  outward  evils  are  not  necessarily  penal, 
but  chiefly  through  the  Revelation  they  give  us  of  Christ's 

^  "The  Redeemer  takes  believers  up  into  the  fellowship  of  His  un- 
troubled blessedness,  and  this  is  His  atoning  activity." — Dtr  clir'istl.  GlauhCy 
sec.  101. 

2  Ihid.  ii.  p.  133.  3  /j^-^^  ^i  p_  133,  4  m^^   ji,  pp.  133^  134. 

^  See  Note  A. — The  Germ  Theory  of  Justification. 


346  THE  INCARNA  TION  AND 

constancy  and  love,  and  through  the  moral  impression  they 
are  fitted  to  make  upon  us.^  Schleiermacher's  theory  in  the 
end  thus  passes  over  into  one  of  moral  influence ;  indeed,  it 
is  through  the  powerful  working  of  Christ's  Personality  upon 
us  that  we  are  moved  to  enter  into  fellowship  with  Him  at 
all.  He  is  our  Eedeemer  through  the  exceptional  strength  of 
His  God-consciousness,  by  which  our  own  is  invigorated  to 
overcome  sin.  If,  then,  we  ask  how,  on  this  theory,  the  sense 
of  guilt  is  removed,  the  answer  we  get  is  very  curious.  In 
fellowship  with  Christ,  Schleiermacher  says,  the  believer  is  a 
new  man,  and  in  the  new  man  sin  is  no  longer  active.  Sin 
in  the  believer  is  but  the  after-workiug  and  back-working 
of  the  old  man,  and  as  such  the  believer  does  not  identify 
himself  with  it.^  He  is  relieved,  therefore,  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  guilt.  Something  like  this  is  Kant's  theory,^  and  in 
our  own  days  it  is  the  theory  of  a  section  of  the  Plymouth 
Brethren — so  do  extremes  meet.  But  it  is  evident  that,  on 
this  hypothesis,  the  doctrine  of  forgiveness  is  retained  only  in 
name.  The  old  man  is  not  forgiven,  and  the  new  man  does 
not  need  forgiveness.  Between  the  two,  forgiveness  falls  to 
the  ground.* 
2.  Theories  2.  Schleicrmacher,  in  his  treatment  of  Christ's  sufferings, 

based  omdea   jj^^g  special  stress  on  His  sympathy  or  fellow-feeling  with  us, 
Bushneii.        as   a  causc   of  'these   sufferings.     This   gives  us  a  point   of 
transition   to    a    second    class    of    theories,   the    keynote    of 
which  may  be  said  to  be  sympathy.     The  starting-point  here 
is  not  the  thought  of  Christ's  archetypal  perfection,  but  the 

^  Cf.  on  these  views,  Der  christl.  Glauhe,  ii.  pp.  136-147. 

^  Der  christl.  Glaiibe,  ii.  p.  194.  What  Schleiermacher  means  by  forgiveness 
of  sins  is  indicated  in  the  following  sentence :  ' '  The  beginning  here  is  the 
vanishing  of  the  old  man,  consequently  also  of  the  old  manner  of  referring  all 
evil  to  sin,  therefore  the  vanishing  of  the  consciousness  of  desert  of  punishment, 
consequently  the  tirst  thing  in  the  moment  of  reconciliation  is  the  forgiveness 
of  sin.  "—P.  105. 

^  Religion  innerhalh  der  Grenzen  der  bloss.  Vernunft,  Book  ii.  sec.  3. 

^  Ritschl  rightly  remarks  that  what  Schleiermacher  calls  reconciliation  with 
God  is  really  reconciliation  with  evil, — "the  reconciliation  of  man  with  suifer- 
iilg,  with  his  position  in  the  world,  which  as  sinner  he  had  traced  to  his  guilt." 
— Recht.  und  Ver.  i.  p.  470  (Eng.  trans.). 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  347 

fitness  of  Christianity  in  a  dynamical  relation  to  break  down 

the  enmity  of  the  sinner's  heart  to  God.     The  best-known 

type  of  this  class  of  theory  is  Dr.  Bushnell's,  in  his  original 

and  freshest   presentation  of  it  in   his   work    on    Vicarious 

Sacrifice.     The  strong  and  true  point  in  Dr.  Bushnell's  theory  Real  substitu- 

is  in  its  insistence  on  the  vicarious  element  involved  in  the  *^°^  involves 

sympathetic 

very  nature  of  sympathetic  love.     We  speak  of  Christ's  sub-  identification 
stitutionary   work,^  —  of  His   standing,   suffering,  dying    io^  ~^^^^^^^^- 

1     i     i  n,  1  1         -1      -1  .      .  ,     tionary  forces 

Sinners, — but  how  often  do  we  apprehend  this  in  a  purely  in  u^^^ 
external  and  official  way  !  It  is  the  merit  of  Dr.  Bushnell's 
book  that,  with  a  wealth  of  illustration  drawn  from  every 
sphere  of  life  in  which  a  like  law  of  substitution  prevails,  he 
makes  us  feel  that  it  is  something  real  and  vital.  When  we 
speak  of  sympathy,  we  are  already  in  a  region  in  which 
substitutionary  forces  are  at  work.  "  None  of  us  liveth  to 
himself,  and  none  dieth  to  himself."  ^  We  benefit  and  suffer 
involuntarily  through  each  other,  but  we  have  it  also  in  our 
power  to  enter  voluntarily  into  the  partnership  of  the  world's 
joys  and  sorrows,  and  by  bearing  the  burdens  of  others  to  help 
to  relieve  them  of  their  load.  From  His  unique  relation  to 
our  race,  this  law  applied  in  the  highest  degree  to  Christ. 
In  the  whole  domain  of  love.  Divine  and  human,  we  find 
substitutionary  forces  acting ;  but  in  Christ's  life  we  find 
them  acting  at  a  maximum.  Christ  not  only  wears  our 
nature,  but  in  the  exercise  of  a  perfect  sympathy  He  truly 
identifies  Himself  with  us  in  our  lot,  bears  our  sins  and 
sorrows  on  His  soul,  and  represents  us  to  the  Father,  not 
as  an  external  legal  surety,  but  with  a  throbbing  heart  of 
love.  This  of  itself  may  not  be  Atonement — we  shall  see 
immediately  it  is  not  —  but  whatever  else  there  is  in 
Atonement,  Scripture  warrants  us  in  saying  that  at  least 
there  is  this.  "  Himself  took  our  infirmities,  and  bare  our 
diseases,"  says  Matthew,^  in  a  passage  which  Dr.  Bushnell 

1  Cf.  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  iv.  pp.  89-98  :  "There  are  substitutionary 
forces,  and  a  receptiveness  for  them  in  humanity." 

2  Rom.  xiv.  8  (R.V.).  '^  Matt.  viii.  17. 


348 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


Points  in 
which  this 
theory  comes 
short. 


adopts  as  the  key  to  his  theory.  "  It  behoved  Him  in  all 
things  to  be  made  like  unto  His  brethren,  that  He  might  be 
a  merciful  and  faithful  High  Priest  in  things  pertaining  to 
God,  to  make  propitiation  for  the  sins  of  the  people."  ^ 

This,  then,  is  the  key  which  Dr.  Bushnell  gives  us  to  the 
vicarious  sufferings  of  Christ — that  of  sympathetic  love ;  and 
so  far  as  the  book  in  question  goes,  it  is  the  whole  key.     If 
I  were   disposed   to   criticise   the   theory  minutely,  I  might 
remark  that,  on  Dr.  Bushnell's  own  principles,  it  is  too  narrow 
to  cover  all  the  facts.     To  get  an  adequate  explanation   of 
Christ's  undeserved  sufferings,  alike  as  regards  their  nature, 
their  motive,  and  their  end,  we  need  a  wider  view  of  them 
than  is  covered  by  this  single  word — sympathy.     Sympathy, 
in  a  pure  and  holy  nature  like  Christ's,  was  necessarily  one 
cause  of  His  sufferings,  but  it  was  not  the  only  cause.     He 
suffered  from  natural  causes — as  hunger  and  thirst,  from  the 
unbelief  of  the  world,  from  the  persecutions   and  malice  of 
His  enemies,  from  temptations  of  the  devil,  from  the  faith- 
lessness  and  desertion  of  disciples,  etc.     Deeper  and  more 
mysterious  causes  of  suffering  are  not  obscurely  intimated  in 
the  Gospel  narratives.     Sympathy  was  only  indirectly  con- 
cerned with  all  these.     If  it  be  said  that  it  was  the  sym- 
pathetic   entrance    into    and    endurance   of    these  sufferings, 
which  gave  them  their  vicarious  character,  I  would  remark 
that  we  need   here  a  wider  word  than  sympathy.      Christ 
voluntarily  took  upon  Him  abasement,  suffering,  and  death 
for  the  salvation  of  men ;  but  He  did  so,  not  simply  from 
sympathy,  but — as  Dr.  Bushnell  also  often  recognises,  though 
still   generally   emphasising   the   sympathetic   aspect  —  in   a 
spirit  of  large,  self-sacrificing  love.     Love  includes  sympathy, 
but  is  not  necessarily  exhausted  by  it.     "We  take  also  too 
narrow   a  view  when   we   seek    in    the    moral   influence   of 
sympathy  or  love  the  sole  key  to  the  peculiar  fruitfulness  of 
self-sacrifice.     That  self-sacrifice  acts  as  a  potent  inspiration 
to  like   deeds  in  others — that  it  has   power  to  soften  and 

iHeb.  ii.  17(R.V.);  cf.  v.  12. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  349 

subdue  the  obdurate  heart — is  a  great  truth.  But  it  should 
not  be  overlooked  that  a  main  part  of  the  secret  of  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  self-sacrifice  lies  in  the  way  in  which  one  life  is  linked 
with  another,  and  society  is  bound  together  as  a  whole ;  so  that 
through  the  labours  and  sacrifices  of  one,  or  of  a  handful — 
martyrs  or  patriots — benefits  accrue  to  multitudes  who  never 
come  within  the  range  of  its  moral  influence.^ 

This  leads  directly  to  another  remark — namely,  that  Dr.  Sympathy 
Bushnell   does   not   give  any  clear   answer  to   the  question,  ^^^'^^—^^^ 

°  "  u  >  doing  what  ? 

What  was  the  distinctive  life-task,  or  vocation,  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  which  these  great  and  heavy  sorrows  came  upon 
Christ  ?  This  is  a  point  of  very  great  importance.  Sym- 
pathy, or  disinterested  love,  will  lead  one  person  to  undertake 
labours  and  undergo  sacrifices  for  another,  but  the  sacrifice  is 
undergone,  not  for  the  mere  sake  of  displaying  sympathy, 
but  always  in  the  prosecution  of  some  independent  end. 
The  mother  wears  out  her  strength  for  her  sick  child,  but  it 
is  in  the  hope  that  by  her  nursing  she  will  aid  in  its  recovery. 
The  philanthropist  will  devote  life  and  fortune  for  the  cause 
in  which  he  is  interested,  but  it  is  in  carrying  out  plans  and 
projects  which  he  thinks  will  contribute  to  the  success  of 
his  object.  If  we  ask,  then,  what  was  the  work  which  Christ 
came  into  the  world  to  do,  in  the  accomplishment  of  which 
He  endured  such  sufferings  ?  it  will  not  do  to  reply  simply — 
to  manifest  sympathy,  for  the  sake  of  the  moral  impression  to 
be  produced  by  it.  We  must  still  ask,  What  was  the  work 
which  made  submission  to  this  suffering  necessary  ?  To  this 
question  Dr.  Bushnell  gives  us  no  very  definite  answer,  none 
which  carries  us  beyond  Christ's  immediate  ministries  to  soul 
and  body,  or  His  witness-bearing  in  word  or  deed  for  the 
Father.  But  even  this  must  have  for  its  content  some  special 
declaration  of  God's  character  and  will,  if  it  is  not  simply  to 
point  us  back  to  the  exhibition  of  love  in  the  vicarious 
suffering.     It  is  on  the  latter  really  that  Dr.  Bushnell  lays  all 

1  This  is  admirably  worked  out  in  tlie  section  on  the  fruitfulness  of  sacrifice 
in  Bishop  Westcott's  The  Victorij  of  the  Cross,  ii.  23-35. 


350  THE  INCARNATION  AND 

the  stress ;  the  suffering  in  his  view  is  not  simply  a  necessary 
incident  in  the  prosecution  of  some  independent  task  of  love, 
but  is  the  main,  substantial  reason  of  Christ's  appearance  in 
the  world.^  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  lay  the  chief  weight  on 
the  witness  of  Christ,  and  view  His  sufferings  in  subordina- 
tion to  this  as  furnishing  occasions  for  the  manifestation  of 
His  patience,  steadfastness,  and  love  to  men — then  is  His  work 
purely  declarative.  His  sufferings  add  nothing  to  its  content, 
and  owe  their  value  for  redemptive  purposes  solely  to  their 
power  of  moral  enforcement. 
Removes  It  is  obvious  that,  if  Dr.  Bushnell's  theory  be  true,  vicari- 

Christ's  work  ^^g  goffering  which  has  redemptive  efficacy,  is  not  confined  to 
uniqtie  post-  Christ,  but  runs  through  the  whole  spiritual  universe.  This, 
tion—non-      indeed,  is  what  he  asserts.^     It  points,  however,  to  a  clear 

recognition  of    ,..,..  .  ,  .,  ,,  t       p   /^^     • 

its  expiatory    ^^i^ct  in  his  vicw,  luasmuch  as  it  removes  the  work  of  Christ 
character.        from  that  unique  and  exceptional  position  which  the  Scrip- 
tures  constantly   ascribe   to   it.      Even   were  this   difficulty 
surmounted,  there  remains  the  crowning  objection,  which  is 
the  really  fatal  one — namely,  that  in  resolving  the  redeeming 
ef&cacy  of  the   sufferings  of   Christ   solely  into  their  moral 
influence,  the  theory  runs  directly  counter  to  the  explicit  and 
uniform  declarations  of  the  New  Testament,  which  put  in  the 
foreground  their  expiatory  and  propitiatory  character.     It  is 
the  less  necessary  to  ask  whether  Dr.  Bushnell's  theory  in 
this  respect  is  adequate,  since   he   himself  at  a  subsequent 
period  was  compelled  to  modify  it  in  favour  of  the  recogni- 
zor. BushneWs  tion  of  an  objective  element  in  the  Atonement.     In  his  later 
later  modifica-  ^^^^^  ^^  Forqiveness  and  Law,  he  tells  us  that  he  had  formerly 

tton  of  his  . 

view.  conceived  the  whole  import  and  effect  of  Christ's  work  to  lie 

in  its  reconciling  power  on  others ;  now  he  has  been  brought 

^  The  work  of  Christ  he  conceives  of  "as  beginning  at  the  point  of  sacrifice, 
vicarious  sacrifice,  ending  at  the  same,  and  being  just  this  all  through." — 
Vicarious  Sacrijice,  Introduction,  p.  35  (1886).  On  the  sense  in  which  he  does 
regard  Christ's  work  as  declarative,  i.e.  as  a  Revelation  of  the  eternal  vicarious 
sufferings  of  the  Godhead,  see  below. 

.    ^  VicxLrious  Sacrifice,  pp.  17,  18.     "The  suffering  of  Christ,"  he  says,  "was 
vicarious  suffering  in  no  way  peculiar  to  Him,  save  in  degree." — P.  68. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  35 1 

to  see  that  it  has  a  propitiatory  effect  on  God  also.  The 
peculiar  view  which  underlies  this  second  work — namely, 
that  God  must  overcome  His  repugnance  to  the  sinner  by 
making  cost  or  sacrifice  for  him,  need  not  detain  us  here, 
especially  as  I  do  not  know  of  anyone  who  has  ever  adopted 
it.^  But  I  cannot  refrain  from  adverting,  as  most  of  Dr. 
Bushnell's  critics  have  done,  to  the  striking  evidence  which  Striking  ad- 
even  the  earlier  volume  affords  of  the  necessity  of  recognising  ^"-^^f^"^  ^«  ;^" 

•z  00  earlier  work. 

an  objective  propitiation.  There  is,  perhaps,  nothing  more 
curious  in  literature  than  the  way  in  which,  in  the  closing 
chapter  of  his  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  after  exhausting  all  his 
powers  to  convince  us  that  the  efficacy  of  Christ's  sufferings 
lies  solely  in  their  moral  efficacy.  Dr.  Bushnell  practically 
throws  the  whole  theory  he  has  been  inculcating  to  the 
winds  as  inadequate  for  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of 
men.  "  In  the  facts  of  our  Lord's  passion,"  he  says,  "  out- 
wardly regarded,  there  is  no  sacrifice,  or  oblation,  or  atone- 
ment, or  propitiation,  but  simply  a  living  and  dying  thus  and 
thus  ...  If,  then,  the  question  arises.  How  are  we  to  use 
such  a  history  so  as  to  be  reconciled  by  it  ?  we  hardly  know 
in  what  way  to  begin.  How  shall  we  come  to  God  by  the  help 
of  this  martyrdom  ?  How  shall  we  turn  it,  or  turn  ourselves 
under  it,  so  as  to  be  justified  and  set  in  peace  with  God  ? 
Plainly  there  is  a  want  here,  and  this  want  is  met  by  giving 
a  thought-form  to  the  facts  which  is  not  in  the  facts  them- 
selves. They  are  put  directly  into  the  moulds  of  the  altar, 
and  we  are  called  to  accept  the  crucified  God-Man  as  our 

1  In  this  work  Dr.  Bushnell  develops  the  idea  already  suggested  in  his  earlier 
book  (pp.  18,  35,  37),  that  Christ's  sacrifice  has  its  chief  significance  as  a 
revelation  of  the  eternal  sacrifice  in  God's  own  nature.  "The  transactional 
matter  of  Christ's  life  and  death,"  he  says,  "  is  a  si)ecimen  chapter,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  infinite  book  that  records  the  eternal  going  on  of  God's  blessed  nature 
within.  ...  All  God's  forgiving  dispositions  are  dateless,  and  are  east  in  this 
mould.  The  Lambhood  nature  is  in  Him,  and  the  cross  set  up,  before  the 
Incarnate  Son  arrives.  ...  I  have  already  said  that  the  propitiation,  so  called, 
is  not  a  fact  accomplished  in  time,  but  an  historic  matter  represented  in  that 
way,  to  exhibit  the  interior,  ante-mundane,  eternally  proceeding  sacrifice  of  the 
Lamb  that  was  slain  before  the  foundation  of  the  world."— Pp.  60,  61,  74. 
This,  surely,  is  to  give  Christ's  work  something  of  a  docetic  character. 


352 


THE  INCARNATION  AND 


3.    Theories 
based  on  idea 
of  vocation — 
Ritschl. 


sacrifice,  an  offering  or  oblation  for  us,  our  propitiation,  so 
as  to  be  sprinkled  from  our  evil  conscience — washed,  purged, 
and  cleansed  from  our  sin.  ...  So  much  is  there  in  this,  that 
without  these  forms  of  the  altar  we  should  be  utterly  at  a 
loss  in  making  any  use  of  the  Christian  facts  that  would  set 
us  in  a  condition  of  practical  reconciliation  with  God.  Christ 
is  good,  beautiful,  wonderful ;  His  disinterested  love  is  a 
picture  by  itself;  His  forgiving  patience  melts  into  my  feel- 
ing ;  His  passion  rends  my  heart.  But  what  is  He  for  ? 
And  how  shall  He  be  made  to  me  the  salvation  that  I  want  ? 
One  word — He  is  my  Sacrifice — opens  all  to  me ;  and  behold- 
ing Him,  with  all  my  sin  upon  Him,  I  count  Him  my  offering  ; 
I  come  unto  God  by  Him,  and  enter  into  the  holiest  by  His 
blood."  1  Not  a  word  needs  to  be  added  to  this  self-drawn 
picture  by  Dr.  Bushnell  of  the  inadequacy  of  a  mere  moral 
influence  theory  of  the  Atonement.  If  the  soul,  in  order  to 
find  peace  with  God,  must  explicitly  renounce  that  theory, 
how  can  it  be  put  forward  as  in  any  sense  a  theory  of  recon- 
ciliation ?  It  fails  to  satisfy  the  wants  of  the  awakened 
conscience ;  and  it  fails  to  satisfy  Scripture,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  demands  an  objective  connection  between  Christ's  work 
and  our  forgiveness. 

3.  Before  dealing  with  theories  which  recognise  an  object- 
ive element  in  the  Atonement,  it  may  be  useful  to  glance  at 
a  theory  which  really  belongs  to  the  subjective  class,  though 
its  author  has  done  his  best  to  give  it  an  objective  form — I 
mean  the  theory  of  Eitschl.  As  Bushnell's  theory  turns  on 
the  idea  of  sympathy,  so  that  of  Eitschl  may  be  said  to  turn 
on  the  idea  of  Vocation.  Eitschl's  strong  point  lies  precisely 
in  the  answer  which  he  gives  to  the  question  which  Bushnell 
failed  to  meet — namely,  what  was  the  work  which  Christ 
came  into  the  world  to  do,  which  entailed  on  Him  suffering 
and  rejection  ?  What  was  His  vocation,  His  life-work,  His 
peculiar  moral  task?  It  is  this  thought  of  Christ's  fulfil- 
ment of  His  vocation  (Beruf)  which  is  the  central  thing  in 

^  Vicarious  Sacrifice,  pp.  460,  461. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  353 

Ptitschl.  He  speaks  of  the  solidaric  unity  of  Christ  with 
God.i  By  this  he  means  that  Christ  adopted  God's  end  in 
the  creation  and  government  of  the  world  (Weltzweck)  as  His 
own  end,  and  lived  and  died  to  fulfil  it.  This  end  is  summed 
up  in  the  establishing  of  the  kingdom  of  God — that  is,  of  a 
religious  and  moral  community,  in  which  the  members  are 
bound  together  by  love  to  God  and  love  to  man,  and  act 
solely  from  the  motive  of  love ;  and  in  which  they  attain  the 
end  aimed  at  in  all  religions,  namely,  moral  supremacy  over 
the  world,  which  is  Eitschl's  synonym  for  eternal  life.^  This, 
it  will  be  allowed,  is  a  somewhat  bald  scheme,  and  it  does 
not  become  richer  as  we  proceed.  In  what  sense,  we  ask,  is 
Christ  a  Eedeemer  ?  The  essential  part  of  the  answer  seems 
to  be  that  through  His  Eevelation  of  God's  grace  and  truth, 
through  His  preaching  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  through 
His  personal  devotion  to  God's  world-aim.  He  influences  and 
enables  men  to  turn  from  their  sins,  and  leads  them  to  appro- 
priate God's  end  as  their  own.  The  uniqueness  of  Christ's 
Person  is  supposed  to  be  secured  by  the  fact  that  in  Him 
first  the  final  end  of  the  kingdom  of  God  is  realised  in  a 
personal  life,  so  that  everyone  who  would  undertake  the  same 
life-task  must  do  it  in  dependence  on  Him.^  Ritschl,  there- 
fore, is  able,  like  Schleiermacher,  to  speak  of  Christ  as  the 
"  Urbild  "  of  humanity  in  its  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  God, 
and  as  such  the  original  object  of  the  love  of  God,  in  whom 
God  beholds  and  loves  those  who  are  embraced  in  His  fellow- 
ship.* But  fellowship  here  means  simply  unity  of  moral  aim. 
What  significance,  on  this  theory,  have  the  sufferings  of 
Christ?  Only  this  significance,  that  they  are  the  highest 
proof  of  Christ's  fidelity  in  His  vocation — the  guarantee  of 
the  reality  of  that  new  relation  to  God  which  is  exhibited  in 

1  Unterricht,  pp.  20,  21  ;  cf.  Recht.  und  Ver.  3rd  ed.  iii.  p.  428. 

2  Ihid.  pp.  7,  12  ;  cf.  Recht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  497  :  "Therefore  is  the  direct 
content  of  eternal  life  or  of  blessedness  to  be  recognised  in  the  religious 
functions  ruling  the  world."— P.  497  ("Eternal  Life  or  Freedom  over  the 
World,"  title  of  sec.  54). 

3  Ihid.  p.  20.  *  Ihid.  p.  20. 

23 


354  THE  INCARNA  TION  AND 

His  Person.^  Here,  as  in  Schleiermacher,  we  are  plainly  back 
to  the  theory  of  a  mere  moral  influence.  Eitschl,  like  Dr. 
Bushnell,  would  cast  his  idea  of  Christ's  death  in  the  moulds 
of  the  altar ;  but  this  must  be  connected  with  his  theory  of 
the  Old  Testament  sacrifices,  which,  he  holds,  had  no  reference 
to  Atonement  for  sin,  but  only  served  to  dispel  the  creature's 
distrust  in  drawing  near  to  a  great  and  holy  God.  Christ,  in 
like  manner,  by  His  death,  brings  us  near  to  God  by  dispel- 
ling distrust  of  God,  and  inspiring  confidence  in  His  grace.^ 
What,  finally,  on  this  theory,  becomes  of  the  idea  of  guilt  ? 
Strictly  speaking,  guilt  is  not  removed,  but  God  admits  us  to 
fellowship  with  Himself,  and  to  co-operation  with  Him  in 
work  for  His  kingdom,  without  our  guilt,  or  feeling  of  guilt, 
forming  any  hindrance  thereto.^  This  is  what  Eitschl  under- 
stands by  justification.  It  is  the  easier  for  him  to  take  this 
view  that,  as  we  saw  before,  guilt  with  him  has  little  objective 
significance,  and  exists  more  for  our  own  feeling  than  for 
God.*  In  proportion  as  this  view  is  adopted,  however,  the 
experience  of  forgiveness  becomes  subjective  also,  and  there 
remains  nothing  objective  but  the  actual  change  of  mind  and 
feeling.^  It  is  plain  that  we  have  here  quite  changed  the 
centre  of  gravity  in  the  Christian  view  of  Eedemption ;  and 
the  only  remedy  is  to  restore  the  idea  of  guilt  to  its  scriptural 
importance,  which,  again,  necessitates  a  changed  idea  of  its 
treatment.^ 

1  Cf.  Unterricht,  pp.  36,  37,  38. 

2  Cf.  iUd.  p.  40.  Cf.  Dorner's  criticism  of  Ritschl  on  this  point,  System 
of  Doctrine,  iii.  405,  406. 

3  Ihid.  p.  32. 

^  Eitschl's  view  of  Christ's  sufferings  and  their  relation  to  forgiveness  is 
expounded  at  length  in  his  Becht.  und  Vers.  3rd  ed.  iii.  417-428,  505-533. 
Cf.  specially  pp.  422,  511,  512,  513,  524,  574.  "Christ's  death,  in  the  view  of 
the  apostles,  is  the  compendious  expression  for  the  fact  that  Christ  has  iuAvardly 
maintained  His  unity  with  God  and  His  revelation-position  in  the  whole  course 
of  His  life.  "—P.  511. 

^  It  is  not  remarkable,  therefore,  that  Hermann,  as  quoted  by  Lipsius,  should 
speak  of  the  forgiveness  of  sins  as  "nothing  at  all  particular"  {ganz  nichts 
hesonderes"). — Die  RitschVsche  Theologie,  p.  12.  Hermann  certainly  expresses 
himself  very  differently  in  his  Verkehr,  pp.  39,  40  (2nd  ed.  p.  103). 

^  A  kindred  view  of  atonement  to  Ritschl's  is  that  of  F.  A.  B.  Nitzsch  in  his 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  3^5 

f-  The  theories  we  are  now  to  consider  differ  from  those  we  Theories 

have  just  had  under  review  in  that  they  recognise  an  objective  "^^^"^^  ^^""T 

.  ./  o  ^  ^^^^  ^^  object- 

element  m  the  Atonement,  and  in  this  way  come  nearer  to  ive  eie^nent  in 
the    manifest   teaching   of  Scripture.      They   recognise   \)^^\,t^e  Atonement. 

^      .     ,  1         /¥•  In  what  does 

Chnsts  work  not  only  affects  us  subjectively  in  the  way  oi  a  consist? 
moral  influence,  but  is  an  objective  work,  on  the  ground  of 
which  God  forgives  sin,  and  receives  us  into  fellowship  with 
Himself.     And  the  question  they  raise  is,  What  is  the  nature 
of  this  objective  element  ? 

4.  The  first  answer  which  is  given  to  this  question  is  by  4.  Theories 
that  erroup  of  theories  which  find  the  essential  feature  in  the '^'^"^^'^ '^'^  ^^'^'^ 

^        ^      .  ofself-sur- 

Atonement  in  the  surrender  of  the  holy  will  of  Christ  to  render  of  holy 

God.     The  idea  of  Atonement  here,  then,  is  the  self-surrender  "^^^^  ^° ,  God- 
Maurice^  etc. 
of  the  human  will  to  the  Divine.     This  is  Maurice's  theory, 

but  essentially  also  that  of  Kothe^  Pressense,  Bahr,  Oehler, 
and  many  others.^  Here,  as  in  previous  theories,  Christ  is 
regarded  as  the  Head  of  the  race,  and  as  representing  in  Him- 
self all  humanity.  In  this  humanity  He  offers  up  to  God 
the  perfect  sacrifice  of  a  will  entirely  surrendered  to  His 
service.  As  Maurice  puts  it,  "  Supposing  the  Father's  will 
to  be  a  will  to  all  good ;  supposing  the  Son  of  God,  being  one 
with  Him  and  Lord  of  man,  to  obey  and  fulfil  in  our  flesh  that 
will  by  entering  into  the  lowest  condition  into  which  men  had 
fallen  through  their  sin  ;  supposing  this  Man  to  be,  for  this 
reason,  an  object  of  continual  complacency  to  His  Father,  and 
that  complacency  to  be  fully  drawn  out  by  the  death  of  the 

Lehrhuch  der  Evang.  Dogmatik,  ii.  (1892).  "God,"  he  holds,  "could  only 
forgive  the  sin  of  humanity  if  the  representative  of  humanity  was  able  to  afford 
him  the  security  of  a  moral  renewal  of  the  same,  the  security  of  a  new  humanity. 
But  this  Christ  did  as  the  Beginner  of  the  new  humanity,  and  as  Founder  of  a 
community  on  which  He  could  take  over  His  own  fellowship  with  God.  We  • 
cannot,  therefore,  say  that  the  doing  of  Christ  first  made  it  possible  for  God  the 
Father  to  be  gi-aciously  disposed  to  men,  but  rather  that  He  made  it  possible 
for  God  to  reveal  His  grace."— P.  508.  Christ  is  therefore  a  guarantee  to  God 
for  our  future  sanctification.  This  is  not  a  thought  which  we  find  prominent 
in  Scripture,  while  the  scriptural  idea  that  Christ  reconciles  us  to  God  by 
removal  of  our  guilt  is  overlooked. 

1  Cf.  Rothe's  Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  265-269 ;  Pressens^,  Apostolic  Age,  p.  274 
(Eng.  trans.  4th  ed. ) ;  Biihr,  Symbolik,  etc. 


356  THE  INCARNATION  AND 

cross ;  supposing  His  death  to  be  a  sacrifice,  the  only  com- 
plete sacrifice  ever  offered,  the  entire  surrender  of  the  whole 
spirit  and  body  to  God,  is  not  this,  in  the  highest  sense,  the 
Atonement  ?  Is  not  the  true,  sinless  root  of  humanity 
revealed ;  is  not  God  in  Him  reconciled  to  man  ?  Is  not  the 
cross  the  meeting-point  between  man  and  man,  between  man 
and  God  ? "  ^  That  which,  on  this  view,  gives  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ  its  value,  is  not  the  suffering,  but  the  perfect  ^will  of 
obedience  expressed  in  the  suffering.  When,  according  to  the 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  sacrifices  and  offerings,  and  whole 
burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices  for  sin,  God  would  not,  neither 
had  pleasure  therein,  "  then  hath  He  said,  Lo,  I  am  come  to 
do  Thy  will.  He  taketh  away  the  first,  that  He  may  estab- 
lish the  second.  By  which  will  we  have  been  sanctified, 
through  the  offering  of  the  body  of  Jesus  Christ  once  for  all."  ^ 
This  surrender  of  the  will  is  the  only  kind  of  sacrifice  God 
delights  in,  and  it  is  the  perfect  Atonement.^  The  sin  of 
humanity  is  its  negation  of  the  will  of  God,  and  the  cross 
takes  back  that  negation  on  behalf  of  humanity.  This  is 
brought  into  harmony  with  the  Old  Testament  sacrifices  by 
the  theory  that  in  these  sacrifices  it  is  not  the  death  of  the 
victim  that  is  the  essential  thing,  but  the  presentation  of  the 
blood.  The  death  is  only  the  means  of  obtaining  the  blood, 
which,  as  the  vehicle  of  the  pure  life,  the  offerer  presents  to 
God  as  a  covering  for  his  own  sin.* 
True  elements  Again,  there  Can  be  no  doubt  of  the  deep  spiritual  truth 
m  this  involved  in  this  theory  of  the  sacrifice  which  Christ  offered  for 

theory  ;  its 

defects.  our  Ecdcmption.     We  may  again  say  that,  whatever  else  there 

is  in  the  Atonement,  there  is  this  in  it.     Viewing  Christ's 
death  as  a  sacrifice,  we  cannot  question  that  the  nerve  and 

1  Theological  Essays,  p.  147.  2  jjeb.  x.  5-10  (R.V.). 

^  Erskine  of  Linlatlien's  theory  was  akin  to  this:  "The  true  and  proper 
sacrifice  for  owr  sin"  is  "the  shedding  out  of  the  blood  of  owr  will — of  that 
will  which  had  offended." — Doctrine  of  Election,  2nd  ed.  p.  156. 

^  Cf.,  e.gr.,  Oehler,  Theology  of  Old  Testament,  i.  p.  411  (Eng.  trans.) ;  Bahr, 
Symbolik  (see  his  view  criticised  by  Dorner,  System  of  Doctrine,  iii.  pp.  407, 
408  ;  and  Fairbairn,  Typology,  3rd  ed.  ii.  pp.  290-297).  Thus  also  Eothe, 
Rielim,  Nitzsch,  Schultz,  etc. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  357 

core  of  the  sacrifice  was  the  holy  will,  in  which,  through  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  He  offered  Himself  without  spot  or  blemish  to 
God.i  It  was  not  the  mere  fact  of  the  sufferings,  but  that 
which  was  the  soul  of  the  sufferings, — the  holy,  loving  will 
in  which  they  were  borne,  and  the  self-surrender  to  the  will 
of  the  Father  in  them,  which  gave  them  their  spiritual  value.^ 
The  only  question  is,  Is  this  the  whole  of  the  explanation  ? 
Does  this  exhaust  the  meaning  of  Christ's  sacrifice  ?  Does 
this  fill  up  the  whole  of  the  scriptural  testimony  regarding 
it  ?  And,  however  fascinated  one  may  be  for  a  time  with 
this  theory,  it  seems  impossible  permanently  to  rest  in  it  as 
adequate.  I  do  not  go  back  on  the  inadequacy  of  a  theory 
which  lays  the  whole  stress  of  Atonement  on  self-sacrifice, 
without  saying  sacrifice  for  what,  or  in  what,  but  come  at 
once  to  the  point  in  which  it  seems  peculiarly  to  fail.  That 
point  is,  that  the  Scriptures  appear  to  assert  a  direct  relation 
of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  to  the  sin  and  guilt  of  men, — a 
direct  expiatory  power  to  remove  that  guilt, — a  relation,  not 
only  to  God's  commanding  will,  but  to  His  condemning  will. 
Not  only  the  Old  and  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  right- 
eousness and  holiness  of  God,  and  of  His  judicial  attitude 
towards  sin, — not  only  the  extreme  gravity  of  the  scriptural 
doctrine  of  guilt,  but  the  deepest  feeling  of  the  awakened 
conscience  itself,  demands  that  guilt  shall  not  be  simply  over- 

^  Heb.  ix.  14,  x.  4-10. 

^  This  is  the  point  of  view  emphasised  in  Bishop  Westcott's  Tlie  Victory  of 
the  Gross,  which  may  be  classed  with  this  group  of  theories.  The  key -words  of 
the  book  are  Fatherhood,  Incarnation,  Sacrifice.  Sufferings  in  general  are 
viewed  in  the  light  of  discipline — "a  revelation  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  who 
brings  back  His  children  to  Himself  in  righteousness  and  love." — P.  82.  Christ 
bore  these  sufferings  according  to  the  mind  of  God  as  "  entering  into  the  Divine 
law  of  purifying  chastisement,"  ''realising  in  every  pain  the  healing  power  of  a 
Father's  wisdom."— Pp.  69,  82.  But  in  what  sense  can  we  speak  of  ** purifying 
chastisement"  and  "healing  power"  in  the  case  of  the  Sinless  One  ?  Bishop 
Westcott  himself  has  expressions  which  recognise  a  deeper  relation  of  sufferings 
to  sin,  as  where,  e.g.,  Christ  is  spoken  of  as  gathering  "into  one  supreme 
sacrifice  the  bitterness  of  death,  the  last  penalty  of  sin,  knowing  all  it  means, 
and  bearing  it  as  He  knows;"  and  His  sufferings  are  held  as  showing  "His 
complete  acceptance  of  the  just,  the  inevitable  sentence  of  God,  on  the  sin  of 
humanity."— Pp.  68,  81.  The  thoughts  of  the  book  are  not  worked  out  into 
perfect  clearness. 


358  THE  INCARNA TION  AND 

looked,  but  that  it  shall  be  dealt  with  also  in  the  transacting 
of  Christ  with  God  for  man,  and  that  the  forgiveness  which 
is  sealed  in  His  death  shall  have  placed  on  it  the  holy  sanc- 
tion of  justice  as  well  as  that  of  love.     I  go  on,  therefore — 
5.  Theories  5.  To  look  at  theories  which  not  only  affirm  the  offering 

which  recog-  q£    ^  j^^iy   ^'^  ^f    obedience    in   Christ's   sacrifice,   but 

nise  a  relation     ^  .  rNii--iTi! 

togiiiit—  recognise  its  relation  to  guilt.  Such  theories  include,  alter 
Dorner,  etc.  ^^  among  their  representatives,  the  great  bulk  of  the  ablest 
and  most  scriptural  theologians — as  Dorner,  Luthardt,  Marten - 
sen,  Oosterzee,  Godet,  etc.;  and  an  undesigned  testimony  is 
borne  to  their  substantial  truth  by  the  approximations  often 
made  to  them  in  theories  of  a  different  tendency,  and  by  the 
difficulty  felt  in  avoiding  language  which  would  imply  the 
expiatory  view,  as  well  as  by  the  studied  accommodation  of 
all  parties,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  recognised  language  of 
the  Church.  Yet  the  dislike  of  many,  and  these  often  men 
of  the  most  spiritual  mind,  to  the  forms  of  the  imputation 
theology,  their  inability  to  rest  in  anything  which  seems  to 
them  to  wear  an  air  of  legal  fiction,  suggests  to  us  the 
necessity  of  seeking  to  approach  even  this  side  of  the  subject 
from  within,  and  of  trying  to  connect  it  with  spiritual  laws 
which  will  commend  it  to  the  conscience  and  the  heart. 
Campbeits  I  may  begin  here  with  a  theory  which,  though  it  opposes 

theory  of        itsclf  dircctlv  to  the  idea  of  penal  sufferings,  yet  deals  with 

vicarious  •'  ^  o  '  j 

repentance  and  this  question  of  the  relation  of  Atonement  to  guilt,  and  has, 
confession.  j  tj^ij^j^^  valuable  light  to  throw  upon  the  subject, — more, 
perhaps,  than  is  sometimes  admitted, — I  refer  to  the  theory 
of  Dr.  John  M'Leod  Campbell.  Dr.  Campbell  starts  with  the 
Incarnation,  and  his  idea  is  to  see  the  Atonement  developing 
itself  naturally  and  necessarily  out  of  Christ's  relation  to  men 
as  the  Incarnate  Son — which  is,  I  think,  a  sound  point  of 
view.  Next,  he  distinguishes  in  Christ's  work  two  sides — 
(1)  a  dealing  with  men  on  the  part  of  God,  and  (2)  a  dealing 
with  God  on  the  part  of  men ;  which,  again,  I  think,  is  a  true 
distinction.  The  peculiarity  of  his  theory,  and  here  un- 
doubtedly it  becomes  artificial  and  indefensible,  lies  in  the 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN,  359 

proposal  to  substitute  a  vicarious  repentance  for  sins,  and 
confession  of  sins,  for  the  vicarious  endurance  of  the  penalties 
of  transgression.!  There  is  here,  first,  a  confusion  between 
repentance  for  sins  and  confession  of  them.  The  idea  that 
Christ  could  in  any  sense  repent  of  the  sins  of  the  humanity 
which  He  represented,  could  bring  to  God  ''  a  perfect  repent- 
ance "  for  them,  is  one  totally  inadmissible,  even  though  his 
premiss  were  granted,  which  it  cannot  be,  that  a  perfect 
repentance  would  of  itself  constitute  Atonement.  That  Christ 
should  confess  our  sins  in  His  high-priestly  intercession  for 
us  with  God  is,  on  the  other  hand,  not  inadmissible,  but  is 
rightly  classed  as  a  part  of  His  substitutionary  activity  for 
us.  It  has  its  analogies  in  the  intercessory  confessions  of 
Moses,  Daniel,  and  Nehemiah,  and  may  very  well  be  regarded 
by  us  as  an  element  in  the  Atonement. 

When  we  get  behind  Dr.  Campbell's  words,  and  look  at  Deeper  eie- 
the  kernel  of   his   theory,  and   even  at   what   he  means   to  '!!'^^^^"^  ^" 

Campbell's 

convey   by   these    unfortunate    expressions    about    a   perfect  view— the 
repentance,  we  obtain  light  on  the  Atonement  which  is,  i"^f"en"in 

,  .    ,  111  rrn  •  response  to 

thmk,  valuable.  The  point  of  this  theory,  as  I  understand  God's judg- 
it — that  on  which  Dr.  Campbell  himself  constantly  insists  '^^^'^^  ^"  ^"'• 
through  all  his  volume  —  is,  that  with  the  most  perfect 
apprehension  of  what  the  sin  of  man  was,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  what  the  mind  of  God  towards  sin,  and  sin's  due  at 
the  hands  of  God,  was,  on  the  other,  there  went  up  from  the 
depths  of  Christ's  sinless  humanity  a  perfect  "  Amen  "  to  the 
righteous  judgment  of  God  against  sin.  There  must,  there- 
fore, be  recognised,  even  on  Dr.  M'Leod  Campbell's  theory,  a 
certain  dealing  of  Christ  with  God's  wrath — with  His  judicial 
condemnation  upon  sin.  "Christ,  in  dealing  with  God  on 
behalf  of  men,"  he  says,  "  must  be  conceived  of  as  dealing 
with  the  righteous  wrath  of  God  against  sin,  and  as  according 
to  it  that  which  was  due." ^  "Let  us  consider,"  he  says 
again,  "  this  '  Amen '  from  the  depths  of  the  humanity  of  Christ 
to  the  Divine  condemnation  of  sin.  What  is  it  in  relation 
^  Tha  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  cliap.  vii.  ^  Ibid.  4th  ed.  p.  117. 


36o  THE  INCARNA  TION  AND 

to  God's  wrath  against  sin  ?     What  place  has  it  in  Christ's 
dealing  with  that  wrath  ?     I  answer,  He  who  so  responds 
to  the  Divine  wrath  against  sin,  saying,  '  Thou  art  righteous, 
0   Lord,  who  judgest   so,'   is  necessarily  receiving   the   full 
apprehension  and  realisation  of  that  wrath,  as  well  as  of  that 
sin  against  which  it  comes  forth,  into  his  soul'  and  spirit,  into 
the  bosom  of  the  Divine  humanity,  and  so  receiving  it.  He 
responds  to  it  with  a  perfect  response — a  response  from  the 
depths  of  that  Divine  humanity — and  in   that   perfect  re- 
sponse He  absorbs  it."  ^     If,  however,  this  were  all  that  was 
in  Dr.  Campbell's  theory,  we  should  still  have  to  say  that, 
valuable  as  the  suggestion  is  which  it  contains,  it  is  only  a 
half-truth.     It  will  be  observed  that,  so  far  as  these  quota- 
tions go,  it  is  only  a  vivid  mental  realisation  of  God's  wrath 
against  sin  to  which  we  are  to  conceive  Christ  as  responding. 
He  has  the  perfect  realisation  of  what  sin  is  in  man ;  He  has 
the  perfect  realisation  of  God's  mind  towards  sin ;  but  He  is 
Himself   in   no  sense  brought  under  the  experience  of  that 
v/rath,  or  of  its  penal  effects :  it  may  be  thought  by  many  He 
could  not  be.     And  this   might   seem  to  detract  from   the 
value  of  that  "  Amen  "  from  the  depths  of  Christ's  humanity  on 
which  all  the  stress  is  laid.     To  take  an  analogous  case,  it  is 
one  thing  to  be  patient  and  resigned  under  a  vivid  mental 
realisation   of  possible   trials,  another  thing   to  be  resigned 
under  actual  experience  of  sorrow.     Yet  the  only  resignation 
which  has  worth  is  that  which  has  been  actually  tested  in 
the  fires  of  trial.    In  order,  therefore,  that  Christ's  "  Amen  "  to 
the  judgment  of  God  against  sin  might  have  its  fullest  con- 
tent, it  would  appear  to  be  necessary  that  it  should  be  uttered, 
not  under  a  mere  ideal  realisation  of  what  God's  wrath  against 
sin  is,  but  under  the  actual  pressure  of  the  judgment  which 
.  This  response  that  wrath  inflicts.     Is  this  possible  ?     Strange  to  say,  with 
"^^atZ'txpeti-  ^^^  ^^^  protests  against  Christ  being  thought  of  as  enduring 
ence  of  the       penal  evils,  it  is  precisely  this  view  to  which  Dr.  Campbell 
penal  conse.^    in  the  end  comes.     He  is  quite   awake   to   the   fact  of  the 

ijiiences  oj  sm.  ^ 

^  The  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  p.  118. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  361 

unique  character  of  Christ's  sufferings;  quite  aware  that  they 
involved  elements  found  in  no  ordinary  martyr's  death ;  quite 
conscious  that  an  "  Amen  "  uttered,  as  he  calls  it,  "  in  naked 
existence,"  ^  would  have  little  value.  It  must  be  uttered  under 
actual  experience  of  the  evils  which  this  judgment  of  God 
lays  on  humanity,  especially  under  the  experience  of  death. 
The  closing  period  of  Christ's  life,  he  says,  was  one  of  which 
the  distinctive  character  was  suffering  in  connection  with  a 
permitted  hour  and  power  of  darkness  ;2  while  his  remarks  on 
our  Lord's  tasting  death  are  so  important  and  apposite  that 
I  cannot  forbear  quoting  one  or  two  of  them.  "  When  I 
think  of  our  Lord  as  tasting  death,"  he  says,  "  it  seems  to  me 
as  if  He  alone  ever  truly  tasted  death.  .  .  .  Further,  as  our 
Lord  alone  truly  tasted  death,  so  to  Him  alone  had  death  its 
perfect  meaning  as  the  wages  of  sin.  .  .  .  For  thus,  in  Christ's 
honouring  of  the  righteous  law  of  God,  tlu  sentence  of  the  laio 
was  included,  as  well  as  the  mind  of  God  which  that  sentence 
expressed.  .  .  .  Had  sin  existed  in  men  as  mere  spirits,  death 
could  not  have  been  the  wages  of  sin,  and  any  response  to 
the  Divine  mind  concerning  sin,  which  would  have  been  an 
Atonement  for  their  sin,  could  only  have  had  spiritual  elements; 
but  man  being  by  the  constitution  of  humanity  capable  of 
death,  and  death  having  come  as  the  wages  of  sin,  it  was  not 
simply  sin  that  had  to  be  dealt  with,  but  an  existing  law 
with  its  penalty  of  death,  and  that  death  as  already  incurred. 
So  that  it  was  not  only  the  Divine  mind  that  had  to  be 
responded  to,  but  also  that  expression  of  the  Divine  mind 
which  was  contained  in  God's  making  death  the  wages  of  sin."  ^ 
It  is  evident  how  nearly  in  such  passages  Dr.  Campbell  comes 
to  a  theory  of  the  Atonement  which  holds  that  Christ,  as  a 
member  of  humanity  and  the  new  Head  of  the  race,  really  bore 

1  TJie  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  p.  259.  ^  Ibid.  p.  224. 

^  Ibid.  pp.  259-262.  He  even  says:  ''The  peace  maJcing  between  God  and 
man,  which  was  perfected  by  our  Lord  on  the  Cross,  required  to  its  reality  the 
presence  to  the  spirit  of  Christ  of  the  elements  of  the  alienation  as  well  as  the 
possession  by  Him  of  that  eternal  righteousness  in  which  was  the  virtue  to 
make  peace."— P.  250.     The  italics  in  the  extracts  are  Dr.  Campbell's  own. 


362  THE  INCARNATION  AND 

in  His  own  Person  the  penal  evils  which  are  the  expression 
of  the  wrath  of  God  against  the  sin  of  the  world.  He  main- 
tains, indeed,  that  for  Christ  these  were  not  really  penal  evils  ; 
but,  in  the  light  of  the  explanations  just  given,  the  difference 
seems  to  resolve  itself  mainly  into  one  of  nomenclature. 
Whatever  sense  we  may  give  to  that  expression,  "  Christ  bore 
the  wrath  of  God  for  us,"  it  is  held  by  no  one  to  mean  that 
Christ  was  personally  the  object  of  His  Father's  anger.  All 
that  is  meant  is  that  by  Divine  ordainment  He  passed  under 
the  experience  of  evils  which  are  the  expression  of  God's 
wrath  against  sin,  or  a  judgment  laid  on  humanity  on  account 
of  that  sin.  The  peculiarly  valuable  idea,  as  I  take  it, 
which  Dr.  Campbell  brings  to  the  elucidation  of  Christ's 
sufferings  as  atoning  is — that  it  was  not  simply  the  patience 
and  resignation  with  which  He  bore  them,  not  simply  the 
surrender  of  His  will  to  God  in  them,  but  the  perfect  acknow- 
ledgment, which  accompanied  His  endurance  of  theni,  of  the 
righteousness  of  God  in  their  ordainment,  which  made  them  a 
satisfaction  for  sin,  "  By  that  perfect  response  in  Amen  to 
the  mind  of  God,  in  relation  to  sin,"  as  he  himself  expresses 
it,  "  is  the  wrath  of  God  rightly  met,  and  that  is  accorded  to 
Divine  justice  which  is  its  due,  and  could  alone  satisfy  it."  ^ 
Christ's  suffer-  It  is,  I  own,  difficult  to  frame  a  theory  to  which  no  excep- 
zngs  viewed  as  ^-^^  ^^^  ^^  taken,  which  shall  show  how  the  sufferinojs  of 

expiatory.  " 

Christ,  which  were  in  large  part  sufferings  endured  for  right- 
eousness' sake,  had  at  the  same  time  an  expiatory  value ;  yet 
it  is  the  clear  teaching  of  Scripture  that  they  possess  this 
character.  As  aids  to  the  apprehension  of  the  subject,  the 
facts  remain  that  these  sufferings  of  the  sinless  Son  of  God 
were  voluntarily  undertaken,  and  (what  can  be  said  of  no 
other  of  the  race)  wholly  undeserved ;  that  Christ  did  enter, 
as  far  as  a  sinless  Being  could,  into  the  penal  evils  of  our 
state,  and  finally  submitted  to  death — the  doom  which  sin  has 
brought  on  our  humanity ;  that  He  did  this  with  a  perfect 
consciousness  and  realisation  of  the  relation  of  these  evils  to 
^  ThE  Nature  of  the  Atonement,  p.  119. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN.  363 

sin ;  that  He  experienced  the  full  bitterness  of  these  evils, 
and,  especially  in  His  last  hours,  was  permitted  to  endure 
them  without  even  the  alleviations  and  spiritual  comforts 
which  many  of  His  own  people  enjoy;  that  there  were 
mysterious  elements  in  His  sufferings,  which  outward  causes 
do  not  seem  adequate  to  explain  {e.g.  the  agony  in  Geth- 
semane,  the  awful  darkness  of  His  soul  on  Calvary),  which 
appear  related  to  His  position  as  our  Sin-bearer  ; — finally,  that 
in  this  mortal  sorrow,  He  still  retains  unbroken  His  relation 
to  the  Father,  overcomes  our  spiritual  enemies,  so  transacts 
with  God  for  men,  so  offers  Himself  to  God  in  substitutionary 
love  on  our  behalf,  so  recognises  and  honours  the  justice  of 
God  in  His  condemnation  of  sin,  and  in  the  evils  that  were 
befalling  Himself  in  consequence  of  that  sin,  that  His  death 
may  fitly  be  regarded  as  a  satisfaction  to  righteousness  for  us 
— the  Eedemption  of  the  world,  not,  indeed,  ijpso  facto,  but 
for  those  who  through  faith  appropriate  His  sacrifice,  die  in 
spirit  with  Him  in  His  death,  and  make  His  righteousness 
the  ground  of  their  hope. 

Is  exception  taken — as  it  was  by  the   Socinians — to  \h.^  Objections  to 
idea  of  the  innocent  satisfying  for  the  guilty  ?     Is  it  asked,  ^^'^  '"i^w-the 
How  should  the  righteous  suffer  for  the  guilty  ?     Is  it  just  suffering  for 
that  they  should  do  so?     Or,  how  can  the  sufferings  of  the  ^^'^ *"^"''^-^* 
righteous  atone  for  the  unrighteous  ?     I  would  point  out  in 
answer  that  there  are  two  questions  here.     The  first  relates 
to  a  matter  of  fact — the  suffering  of  the  righteous  for  the 
guilty.     We  know   that  they  do   so.     It  is  the  commonest  This,  in  itself 
fact  in  our  experience.     In  the  or(:janic  relation  in  which  we  ^-^^^  ^^ 

^  o  common  ex- 

stand  to  each  other  it  could  not  be  otherwise.     The  penalties /^/-zVw^*?, 
of  evil-doing  are  probably  never  confined  to  the  actual  wrong-  ^Pp^'g'I^om 

^  r  J  u    ^/^g  organic 

doer,  but  overflow  upon  others,  and  sometimes  involve  them  connection  of 
in   untold   misery.       To   impeach    the  justice    of   this   is   to  ^^^*^"""^^y' 
impeach  the  justice  of   an  organic  constitution  of  the  race. 
Thus  far,  then,  we  can  say  that  Christ  is  no  exception  to  this 
universal  law ;  nay.  He  is  the  highest  exemplification  of  it. 
Christ  could  not  enter  the  world  without  receiving  upon  Him 


364  THE  INCARNA  TION  AND 

the  brunt  of  its  evils.  Just  because  He  was  the  infinitely- 
pure  and  holy  One,  they  fell  on  Him  with  greater  severity. 
A  writer  like  Bushnell  here  often  uses  the  strongest  language. 
He  speaks  of  Christ  as  incarnated  into  the  curse  of  the 
world.  "  It  is,"  he  says,  "  as  if  the  condemnations  of  God 
were  upon  Him,  as  they  are  on  all  the  solidarities  of  the  race 
into  which  He  is  come."  ^  "  It  means,"  he  says  again,  "  that 
He  is  incarnated  into  common  condition  with  us,  under  what 
is  called  the  curse  ...  He  must  become  a  habitant  with  us, 
a  fellow-nature,  a  brother ;  and  that  He  could  not  be  without 
The  real  being  entered  into  what  is  our  principal  distinction  as  being 
question—       -LiiKjer  the  curse  ...  He  has  it  upon  Him,  consciously,  as  the 

Hoio  should  ^ 

stick  sufferings  cursc  or  penal  shame  and  disaster  of  our  transgression."  ^     The 
become  expta-   question  is  not,  therefore,  how  should  Christ,  the  sinless  One, 

tory  for  others? 

The  answer  Suffer  for  the  guilty  ?  but,  how  can  sufferings  thus  endured 
suggested.  bccomc  cxpiatory  or  atoning  ?  And  this  I  have  tried  to  answer 
by  pointing  out  the  unique  relation  which  Christ  sustains  to  our 
race,  in  virtue  of  which  He  could  become  its  Eepresentative 
and  Sin-bearer;  and,  secondly,  by  indicating  how  in  our 
humanity  He  must,  as  Dr.  M'Leod  Campbell  says,  have 
related  Himself  to  our  sins — not  only  patiently  and  lovingly 
enduring  sufferings,  not  only  yielding  up  to  His  Father  a  will 
of  obedience  in  them,  but  viewing  them  in  the  light  of  their 
causes,  entering  fully  into  God's  judgment  on  the  sin  of  which 
they  were  the  consequences,  and  rendering  to  God  in  our 
nature  a  full  and  perfect  and  glorifying  response  to  His 
justice  in  them.  In  this  way  His  sufferings  might  well 
become,  like  those  of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  in  Isaiah  liii., 
expiatory. 
Recapitulation  Gathering  together,  in  closing,  the  various  aspects  of  Christ's 
andconciu-  ^q^.]^  which  have  been  brought  before  us,  we  see,  I  think,  the 
truth  of   a   previous  remark  that   the   true  or  full  view  of 

^  Forgiveness  and  Law,  p.  155. 

^  Ibid.  pp.  150,  158.  Bushnell  will  have  it  that  his  "penal  sanctions "  are 
"never  punitive,  but  only  coercive  and  corrective." — P.  132.  But  what  does 
"  penal"  mean,  if  not  "  punitive  ?  "  And  can  penalties  not  be  "judicial,"  and 
yet  up  to  a  certain  point  "corrective ? " 


sion. 


REDEMPTION  FROM  SIN,  365 

Christ's  work  in  Eedemption  is  wide  enough  to  include  them 
all — takes  up  the  elements  of  truth  in  every  one  of  them. 
A  complete  view  of  Christ's  work  will  include  the  fact 
that  in  the  Incarnation  a  new  Divine  life  has  entered 
humanity;  will  include  the  fact  that  Christ  is  our  perfect 
Representative  before  God  as  the  new  Head  of  the  race,  and 
the  wearer  of  our  humanity  in  its  pure  and  perfect  form ; 
will  include  the  fact  of  an  organic  relation  of  Christ 
with  all  the  members  of  the  race,  in  virtue  of  which  He 
entered,  not  merely  outwardly,  but  in  the  most  real  and  vital 
way,  into  the  fellowship  of  our  sin  and  suffering,  and  truly 
bore  us  on  His  heart  before  God  as  a  merciful  and  faithful 
High  Priest ;  will  include  the  idea  of  a  vocation  which  Christ 
had  as  Founder  of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  though  this 
vocation  will  embrace,  not  only  the  Eevelation  of  the  Father's 
character  and  doing  His  will  among  men,  but  also  the  making 
reconciliation  for  the  sins  of  the  people ;  will  include  the  fact 
of  a  holy  and  perfect  and  continuous  surrender  of  Christ's  will 
to  God,  as  an  offering,  through  the  Eternal  Spirit,  in  humanity, 
of  that  which  man  ought  to  render,  but  is  unable  in  his  own 
strength  to  give — the  presentation  to  God  in  humanity,  there- 
fore, of  a  perfect  righteousness,  on  the  ground  of  which 
humanity  stands  in  a  new  relation  to  God,  and  is  accepted  in 
the  Beloved ; — will  include,  finally,  a  dealing  with  God  in 
reference  to  the  guilt  of  sin,  which  is  not  simply  a  sympa- 
thetic realisation  of  the  burden  of  that  guilt  as  it  rests  on 
us,  nor  yet  simply  a  confession  of  sins  in  our  name,  nor  yet 
simply  an  acknowledgment  in  humanity  of  the  righteousness 
of  God  in  visiting  our  sins  with  wrath  and  judgment,  but  is 
a  positive  entrance  into  the  penal  evils  of  our  condition,  and, 
above  all,  into  death  as  the  last  and  most  terrible  of  these 
evils,  in  order  that  in  these  also  He  might  become  one  with 
us,  and  under  that  experience  might  render  to  God  what  was 
due  to  His  judicial  righteousness, — an  Atonement  which,  as 
Dr.  M'Leod  Campbell  says,  has  in  it  an  "  Amen  "  from  the 
depths  of  our  humanity  towards  the  righteous  judgment  of 


366       THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  REDEMPTION. 

God  on  our  sins.  So  far  from  this  latter  aspect  of  Christ's 
work — the  judicial — being  to  be  thrown  into  the  background, 
it  is,  I  think,  the  one  which  the  apostolic  theology  specially 
fastens  upon  as  the  ground  of  the  remission  of  sins,  and  the 
means  by  which  the  sinner  is  brought  into  a  relation  of  peace 
with  God — the  ground,  as  Bunyan  phrases  it,  on  which  God 
"justly  justifies  the  sinner." 
The  Incarnate  Christ,  as  the  Son  of  God,  incarnate  in  our  nature,  is  the 
Son  alone        ^^     ^^^  qualified  to  undertake  this  work ;  and  as  Son  of 

cotdd  achieve 

Redemption.  God  and  Son  of  Man  He  did  it.  He  alone  could  enter,  on 
the  one  hand,  into  the  meaning  of  the  sin  of  the  world ;  on 
the  other,  into  a  realisation  of  all  that  was  due  to  that  sin 
from  God,  not  minimising  either  the  sin  or  the  righteousness, 
but  doing  justice  to  both,  upholding  righteousness,  yet  opening 
to  the  world  the  gates  of  a  forgiving  mercy.  In  Him  we  see 
that  done  which  we  could  not  do ;  we  see  that  brought  which 
we  could  not  bring ;  we  see  that  reparation  made  to  a  broken 
law  which  we  could  not  make ;  we  see,  at  the  same  time,  a 
righteousness  consummated  we  long  to  make  our  own,  a 
victory  over  the  world  we  long  to  share,  a  will  of  love  we 
long  to  have  reproduced  in  ourselves,  a  grandeur  of  self- 
sacrifice  we  long  to  imitate.  And,  appropriating  that  sacrifice, 
not  only  in  its  atoning  merit,  but  in  its  inward  spirit,  we 
know  ourselves  redeemed  and  reconciled. 


LECTURE  IX. 


V^t  Incarnation  antr  ©uman  iBesting. 


"This  earth  too  small 
For  Love  Divine  ?    Is  God  not  Infinite  ? 
If  so,  His  Love  is  Infinite.    Too  small ! 
One  famished  babe  meets  pity  oft  from  man 
More  than  an  army  slain !    Too  small  for  Love  ! 
Was  earth  too  small  to  be  of  God  created  ? 
Why  then  too  small  to  be  redeemed  ? " 

Aubrey  De  Verb. 

"And  so  beside  the  silent  sea 
I  wait  the  muffled  oar, 
No  harm  from  Him  can  come  to  me 
On  ocean  or  on  shore. 

"  I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air, 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care." 

Whittier. 

"The  last  enemy  that  shall  be  abolished  is  death." — Paul. 


LECTUKE   IX. 

THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

Every  view  of  the  world  has  its  eschatology.     It  cannot  help  Necessity  of  an 

raising  the  question  of  the  whither,  as  well  as  of  the  what  ^^''^^^^^^^'^ 

and  the  whence  ?     "  0  my  Lord,"  said  Daniel  to  the  angel, 

"  what  shall  be  the  end  of  these  things  ? "  ^     What  is  the  end, 

the  final  destiny,  of  the  individual  ?    Does  he  perish  at  death, 

or  does  he  enter  into  another  state  of  being ;  and  under  what 

conditions  of  happiness  or  woe  does  he  exist  there  ?     What  is 

the  end,  the  final  aim,  of  the  great  whole ;  that  far-off  Divine 

event,  to  which  the  whole  creation  moves  ?     It  is  vain  to  tell 

man  not  to  ask  these  questions.     He  will  ask  them,  and  must 

ask  them.     He  will  pore  over  every  scrap  of  fact,  or  trace  of 

law,  which  seems  to  give  any  indication  of  an  answer.    He  will 

try  from  the  experience  of  the  past,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 

present,  to  deduce  what  the  future  shall  be.     He  will  peer  as 

far  as  he  can  into  the  unseen  ;  and,  where  knowledge  fails,  will 

weave  from  his  hopes  and  trusts  pictures  and  conjectures. 

It  is  not  religions  only,  but  philosophy  and  science  also,  Eschatology  in 
which  have  their  eschatologies.     The  Stoics  had  their  concep- ^'^.'*^'''''-^'^->' ^'^'^ 

°  ^         ^    science. 

tions  of  world-cycles,  when  everything,  reabsorbed  in  the 
primal  fire,  was  produced  anew  exactly  as  before.  The 
Buddhists  had  their  kalpas,  or  world-ages,  periods  of  destruc- 
tion and  restoration,  "  during  which  (as  in  Brahmanism) 
constant  universes  are  supposed  to  appear,  disappear,  and 
reappear  "  ;  ^  new  worlds,  phoenix-like,  incessantly  rising  out 

^  Dan.  xii.  8. 

2  Buddhism,  by  Trofessor  Monier- Williams,  p.  120.     Cf.  p.  118. 

24 


370    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY, 

of  the  ruins  of  the  old.  The  pessimist,  Hart  maun,  has  his 
eschatology  as  truly  as  the  New  Testament  has  its.^  Kant 
speculated,  in  his  Theory  of  the  Heavens,  on  the  birth  and 
death  of  worlds ;  and  Strauss  compares  the  cosmos  to  one  of 
those  tropical  trees  on  which,  simultaneously,  here  a  blossom 
bursts  into  flower,  there  a  ripe  fruit  drops  from  the  bough.^ 
How  is  the  science  of  to-day  seen  peering  on  into  the  future, 
trying  to  make  out  what  shall  be  the  end  of  these  things ; 
whither  the  changes,  and  transformations,  and  integrations, 
and  dissolutions  of  the  physical  universe  all  tend ;  and  what 
fate  is  in  store  for  the  earth,  and  for  the  physical  system  as 
a  whole  !  Mr.  Spencer  has  his  eschatology,  and  speculates 
on  a  boundless  space,  holding  here  and  there  extinct  suns, 
fated  to  remain  thus  for  ever ;  though  he  clings  to  the  hope 
that  in  some  way  he  knows  not,  out  of  the  ashes  of  this  old 
universe,  a  new  universe  wall  arise.^  The  authors  of  The 
Unseen  Universe  say,  "What  happens  to  our  system  will 
happen  likewise  to  the  whole  visible  universe,  which  will,  if 
finite,  become  in  time  a  lifeless  mass,  if  indeed  it  be  not 
doomed  to  utter  desolation.  In  fine,  it  will  become  old  and 
efifete,  no  less  truly  than  the  individual,  —  it  is  a  glorious 
garment  this  visible  universe,  but  not  an  immortal  one — we 
must  look  elsewhere,  if  we  are  to  be  clothed  with  immortality 
as  with  a  garment."  ^ 
The  Christian  The  Christian  view  of  the  world,  also,  has  its  eschatology 
view  esc  ato-    — ^^^  ^^^  -^^  -^^  physical  issucs,  not  very  different  from  that 

logical  because  >  r    j  »  j 

teieological.  just  described.  The  Christian  view,  however,  is  positive, 
where  that  of  science  is  negative ;  ethical,  where  it  is 
material ;  human,  where  it  is  cosmogonic ;  ending  in  personal 
immortality,  where  this  ends  in  extinction  and  death.  The 
eschatology  of  Christianity  springs  from  its  character  as  a 
teieological  religion.  The  highest  type  of  "  Weltanschauung  " 
is  that  which  seeks  to  grasp  the  unity  of  the  world  through 

^  On  Hartmann's  "Cosmic  Suicide,"  see  Caro's  Lt  Pesnmisme,  chap.  viii. 

2  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe,  p.  152. 

3  First  Principles,  p.  529,  537. 

*  Unseen  Universe,  5tli  ed.  p.  196.     Cf.  pp.  165,  166. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    371 

the  conception  of  an  end  or  aim.  It  is  only  through  a  con- 
ception of  the  world  that  is  itself  unified  that  man  can  give 
a  true  unity  to  his  life — only  in  reference  to  an  aim  or  end 
that  he  can  organise  his  life  to  a  consistent  whole.  On  the 
cycle  hypothesis,  no  satisfactory  view  of  life  is  possible.  All 
is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit.  A  truly  purposeful  view  of 
life  is  only  possible  on  the  basis  of  a  world -view  which 
gathers  itself  up  to  a  highest  definite  aim.  As  giving  this, 
Christianity  is  the  teleological  religion  'par  excellence.  It  is, 
says  Dorner,  the  only  absolute  teleological  religion.^  In  one 
other  respect  Christianity  agrees  with  the  higher  speculation 
— scientific  and  other — and  that  is  in  its  breadth  and  scope, 
extending  in  its  issues  far  beyond  this  little  spot  called  earth, 
and  touching  in  its  influence  the  remotest  regions  of  creation. 

I.  Before  entering  directly  on  eschatological  questions,  it  /.  The  astro- 
niay  be  worth  our  while,  in   connection  with  the  fact  j^st ''.^''"'"''^ ''^-^'^'" 

•^    ^  '  "^         tion  to 

mentioned,  to  glance  at  the  objection  sometimes  raised  to  Christianity. 
Christianity  from  the  enlargement  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
physical  universe  through  modern  discoveries — chiefly  through 
astronomy.  The  enormous  expansion  of  our  ideas  in  regard 
to  the  extent  of  the  physical  universe  brought  about  through 
the  telescope,  and  the  corresponding  sense  of  the  insignifi- 
cance of  our  planet,  awakened  by  comparison  with  the  gigantic 
whole,  is  supposed  by  many  to  be  fatal  to  belief  in  Christ- 
ianity. Strauss  boldly  affirms  that  the  Copernican  system 
gave  the  death-blow  to  the  Christian  view  of  the  world.^  So 
long  as  the  earth  was  believed  to  be  the  centre  of  the 
universe,  and  the  only  inhabited  spot  in  it,  so  long  was  it 
possible  to  maintain  that  God  had  a  peculiar  love  to  the 
inhabitants  of  our  world,  and  had  sent  His  Son  for  their 
Itedemption.  But  when  the  true  relation  of  the  earth  to  the 
sun,  and  to  the  other  planets  of  the  system,  was  discovered 

^  System  of  Doctrine,  iv.  p.  376  (Eng.  trans.)-  Of.  Martensen,  DogmaticSy 
pp.  465,  466  (Eng.  trans.). 

-  Is  fatal  even  to  belief  in  a  personal  God.  Cf.  Ins  Der  alte  und  der  neue. 
Glaube,  pp.  108-110. 


3  7  2     THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

— when,  beyond  this,  the  infinite  depths  of  the  heavens  were 
laid  bare,  with  their  innumerable  suns,  galaxies,  and  con- 
stellations, to  which  our  own  sun,  with  its  attendant  planets,  is 
but  as  a  drop  in  the  immeasurable  ocean — then  the  idea  that 
this  little   globe   of    ours — this   insignificant    speck — should 
become  the  scene  of  so   stupendous  a  Divine  drama  as  the 
Christian  religion  represents ;  should  be  the  peculiar  object  of 
God's  favours,  and  the  recipient  of  His  Revelations  ;    that, 
above  all,  the  Son  of  God  should  become  incarnate  on  its 
surface,  seemed  nothing  less  than  incredible.     In  a  universe 
teeming  with  worlds,  presumably  inhabited  by  intelligences 
of   every  order   and   degree,  it    is    thought   preposterous    to 
connect  the  Deity  in  this  peculiar  and  transcendent  way  with 
one  of  the  very  smallest  of  them. 
Reply:  Are         Here,  first,  since   the  objection  is  made  in  the  name  of 
^^^h"b-t%      science,  it  might   fairly  be  asked  how   far   the  premiss  on 
which   it    rests  —  the   assumption    of    innumerable    spheres 
peopled  with  such  intelligences  as  we  have  in  man  (I  do  not 
refer    to   angelic    intelligences,   for    the   Christian   view    has 
always  admitted  these,  without  our  thoughts  of  the  greatness 
of    the   Christian   Redemption   being    thereby   lessened,   but 
corporeal  inhabitants  of  other  planets  and  worlds) — how  far 
this  assumption  is  scientifically  established,  or  is  even  matter 
of  plausible  conjecture.      Kant  declared  that  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  stake  his  all  on  the  truth  of  the  proposition — if 
there  were  any  way  of  bringing  it  to  the  test  of  experience 
— that  at  least  some  one  of  the  planets   which  we  see  is 
inhabited ;  ^    but  others  may   not  be  prepared  to   share  his 
confidence.      Of  direct  scientific  evidence,  of  course,  there  is 
none,  and  the  argument    from  analogy  is  weakened  rather 
than  strengthened  by  the  progress  of  modern  discovery.     If 
astronomy  has  been  extending  our  views  of  the  universe  in 
space,  geology  has  been  extending  our  views  of  our  own  world 
backwards  in  time,  and  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  though 
preparation  was  being  made  through  the  millions  of  years  of 

^  Krililc  d.  r.  Ver.  p.  561,  Erdmann's  ed.  (Eng.  trans,  p.  500). 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY,    3  7  3 

that  long  past,  it  is  only  in  quite  recent  times  that  man 
appeared  upon  its  surface,  and  then  under  conditions  which 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  exist  in  any  other  planet  of 
our  system.1  Are  there  not  worlds  in  the  making,  as  well  as 
worlds  already  made  ?  2  Certain  it  is,  that  of  the  seven 
hundred  and  fifty-one  parts,  or  thereabouts,  into  which  our 
solar  system  can  be  divided,  life,  such  as  we  know  it,  or  can 
conceive  of  it,  is  not  found  in  seven  hundred  and  fifty  of 
them,  for  the  sun  monopolises  that  enormous  proportion  of 
the  whole  for  himself ;  and  of  the  remaining  one  part,  it  is 
only  an  insignificant  fraction  in  which  the  physical  conditions 
exist  which  render  any  of  the  higher  conditions  of  life 
possible.^  If  the  same  proportion  prevails  through  the 
universe,  the  area  reserved  for  rational  life  will  be  corre- 
spondingly restricted.  But,  in  truth,  we  know  nothing  of 
planets  in  other  parts  of  the  heavens  at  all,  or  even  whether 
— except  in  one  or  two  problematical  instances — such  bodies 
exist.*  What  if,  after  all,  our  little  planet  should  be  the 
Eden  of  the  planetary  system — the  only  spot  on  which  a 
place  has  been  prepared  for  rational  life,  or  in  which  the 
conditions  favourable  to  its  blossoming  forth  have  been  found  ?  ^ 
It  is  a  singular  circumstance  that  the  objection  here  urged 
against  Christianity  is  not  exclusively  applicable  to  it,  but 
bears  as  strongly  against  all  those  speculative  systems — 
Hegelianism,  Schopenhauerism,  Hartmannism,  etc.  —  which 
have  been  hatched  in  the  full  light  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Here,  too,  it  is  assumed  that  our  planet  stands  alone  as  the 

^  This  is  the  point  specially  made  in  Whewell's  The  Plurality  of  Worlds. 

2  Sun  and  planets. 

^  In  Mars,  and  even  here  Professor  Ball  doubts  the  possibility. — Story  of  the 
Heavens,  p.  190. 

4  Professor  Ball  says  :  "  It  may  be  that,  as  the  other  stars  are  suns,  so  they 
too  may  have  other  planets  circulating  round  them ;  but  of  this  we  know 
nothing.  Of  the  stars  we  can  only  say  that  they  are  points  of  light,  and  if 
they  had  hosts  of  planets  these  planets  must  for  ever  remain  invisible  to  us, 
even  if  they  were  many  times  as  large  as  Jupiter." — Story  of  the  Heavens, 
p.  95. 

'^  "  The  earth  is  perhaps  at  this  hour  the  only  inhabited  globe  in  the  midst  of 
almost  boundless  space." — Eenan,  Dialogues,  p.  61. 


374    THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY, 

place  in  which  the  absolute  has  come  to  consciousness  of 
himself  (or  itself),  and  where  the  great  drama  of  his  historical 
evolution  is  unfolded — where,  in  Hegelian  phrase,  God  is 
incarnate  in  man  !  ^ 
The  objection  Apart  from  such  considerations,  however,  the  real  reply  to 
a  quantitative  ^j^-^  objection  to  the  Christian  view  of  the  world  is  that  it 

one,  •     1  •      J        £ 

is  a  merely  quantitative  one.  Be  the  physical  magnitude  or 
the  universe  what  it  may,  it  remains  the  fact  that,  on  this 
little  planet,  life  hm  effloresced  into  reason ;  that  we  have 
here  a  race  of  rational  beings  who  bear  God's  image,  and  are 
capable  of  knowing,  loving,  and  obeying  Him.  This  is  a 
fact  against  which  it  is  absurd  to  put  into  comparison  any 
mere  quantities  of  inanimate  matter — any  number  of  suns, 
nebulae,  and  planets.  Even  suppose  that  there  were  other 
inhabited  worlds,  or  any  number  of  them,  this  does  not 
detract  from  the  soul's  value  in  this  world.  Mind,  if  it  has 
the  powers  we  know  it  has,  is  not  less  great  because  other 
minds  may  exist  elsewhere.  Man  is  not  less  great,  because 
he  is  not  alone  great.  If  he  is  a  spiritual  being, — if  he  has  a 
soul  of  infinite  worth,  which  is  the  Christian  assumption, — 
that  fact  is  not  affected  though  there  were  a  whole  universe- 
full  of  other  spiritual  beings,  as  indeed  the  Christian  Church 
has  always  believed  there  is.  The  truth  is,  what  we  have 
underlying  this  objection  is  that  very  anthropomorphism  in 
thinking  about  God  against  which  the  objection  is  directed. 
It  is  thought  that  while  it  might  be  worthy  of  God  to  care 
for  man  if  he  existed  alone,  it  is  derogatory  to  God's  greatness 
to  think  of  him  when  there  are  so  many  other  objects  in  the 
universe.  Or  it  is  thought  that  God  is  a  Being  so  exalted 
that  He  will  lose  sight  of  the  individual  in  the  crowd. 
Those  who  think  thus  must  have  very  unworthy  ideas  of  the 
Being  whom  they  wish  to  exalt ;  must  forget,  too,  that  the 

^  Cf.  Renan:  "For  my  part  I  think  that  there  is  not  in  the  universe 
any  intelligence  superior  to  that  of  man,  so  that  the  greatest  genius  of  our 
I)lanet  is  truly  the  priest  of  the  world,  since  he  is  the  highest  reflection 
of  it."  —  Dialogues,  p.  283.  See  on  Kenan's  extraordinary  eschatology — 
Note  A. 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    375 

universe  caa  only  exist  on  the  condition  that  God  is  present 
in  the  little  as  in  the  great ;  that  His  knowledge,  power,  and 
care  extend,  not  to  things  in  the  mass,  but  to  each  atom  of 
matter  separately,  to  each  tiniest  blade  of  grass,  to  each 
insect  on  the  wing,  and  animalcule  in  the  drop  of  water.  It 
is  the  Bible  which  gives  the  true  philosophy,  when  it  teaches 
that  the  same  God  who  cares  for  stars  cares  also  for  souls; 
that  the  very  hairs  of  our  head  are  all  numbered ;  that  not 
even  a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground  without  our  heavenly 
Father.i 

But  the  question  still  remains,  even  if   all  these  bright  The  bearing 
worlds  were  inhabited — which  they  are  not, — inhabited  by  ^/"•^^^/^^  ^'^^ 

''  ''  question. 

rational  beings  like  to  man  himself, — are  they  sinful  ?  Sin 
retains  its  awful  significance  in  the  universe,  no  matter  how 
many  worlds  there  may  be.  If  this  world  alone  is  sinful, 
then  it  is  worthy  of  God  to  redeem  it.  Have  men's  hearts 
not  recognised  the  Divineness  of  that  parable  of  Christ  about 
the  lost  sheep  ?  Is  it  not  the  Divinest  thing  that  God  can 
do  to  seek  and  to  save  the  lost  ?  Suppose  that  this  universe 
were  as  full  of  intelligent  life  as  the  objection  represents,  but 
that  this  world  is  the  one  lost  sheep  of  the  Divine  flock, 
would  it  not  be  worthy  of  the  Good  Shepherd  to  seek  it  out 
and  save  it  ?  Shall  its  size  prevent  ?  Then  is  the  worth  of 
the  soul  a  thing  to  be  weighed  in  scales  ? 

Mr.  Spencer,  in  one  passage  of  his  writings,  thinks  he  has  Mr.  Spencer's 
destroyed  the  case  for  Eevelation,  when  he  asks  us  if  we  can  ^J^*^^^'* 
believe  that  "  the  Cause  to  which  we  can  put  no  limits  in 
space  or  time,  and  of  which  our  entire  solar  system  is  a 
relatively  infinitesimal  product,  took  the  disguise  of  a  man 
for  the  purpose  of  covenanting  with  a  shepherd  -  chief  in 
Syria."  2  He  first  defines  God  in  terms  which  put  Him 
infinitely  far  away  from  us,  and  then  asks  us  to  combine 
with  this  a  conception  which  seems  to  contradict  it.  But 
what  if  God  is  not  only  the  "Cause"  of  all  things — the 
infinitely  great  Creator  of  stars  and  systems — but,  as  Mr. 
1  Ps.  cxlvii.  3,  4  ;  Matt.  x.  29-31.  ^  Ecchs.  Institidions,  p.  704. 


The  issues  of 
Redemption  not 
confined  to  this 
planet. 


376    THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

Spencer's  own  principles  might  lead  him  to  hold,  One  also 
infinitely  near  to  us, — 

"Speak  to  Him,  thou,  for  He  hears,  and  spirit  with  spirit  can  meet; 
Closer  is  He  than  breathing,  and  nearer  than  hands  or  feet,"  ^ — 

and,  beyond  this,  infinite  goodness  and  love  as  well, — is  it 
then  so  strange  that  He  should  draw  a  Syrian  shepherd  to 
His  side,  and  should  establish  a  covenant  with  him  which  had 
for  its  ultimate  aim,  not  that  shepherd's  personal  aggrandise- 
ment, but  the  blessing,  through  him,  of  all  mankind  ? 

But  finally,  and  this  is  the  complete  answer  to  the  objec- 
tion, if  the  Christian  view  is  true,  the  scope  of  God's  purpose 
is  not  confined  to  this  little  planet,  but  embraces  all  the 
realms  of  creation.^  The  Incarnation  is  not  a  fact  the  signi- 
I  ficance  of  which  is  confined  to  earth.  The  Scriptures  do  not 
so  represent  it,  but  seek  rather  to  impress  us  with  the  thought 
of  how  wide  this  purpose  of  God  is ;  how  extensive  in  its 
sweep ;  how  far-reaching  in  its  issues.  The  objection  to  the 
Christian  scheme  with  many,  I  fancy,  will  rather  be,  that 
with  its  base  on  earth  it  rises  too  high ;  that  when  it  speaks 
to  us  of  the  bearing  of  the  gospel  on  distant  parts  of  creation, 
of  angels  desiring  to  look  into  it,  of  principalities  and  powers 
in  the  heavenly  places  being  instructed  by  it  in  the  many- 
sided  wisdom  of  God, — above  all,  of  all  things  in  heaven  and 
in  earth  being  gathered  up  in  Christ,^ — it  presents  us  with 
a  plan  the  magnitude  of  which  soars  beyond  our  powers  of 
belief.  But  if  the  Divine  plan  is  on  a  scale  of  this  grandeur, 
why  complain  because  its  starting-point  is  this  physically 
small  globe  ?  The  answer  to  this  objection,  as  to  the  similar 
one  drawn  from  the  earthly  lowliness  of  Christ,  must  be, 
^  resjpice  finem — look  to  the  end  ! 

//.  Principles       H.  In  proceeding  now  to  deal  directly  with  the  eschato- 
tion ofischa'to-  ^^S^^^^  relations  of  the  Christian  view,  it  is  to  be  remembered 

logical  1  Tennyson's  Higher  Pantheism. 

prophecy.  2  This  is  the  argument  developed  in    Chalmers'   celebrated  Astronomical 

Discourses. 

3  I  pyj._  I  12 ;  Eph.  ii.  10,  i.  10,  etc. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    377 

that  it  stands  differently  with  lines  of  prophecy  projected 
into  the  future,  from  what  it  does  with  facts  already  past. 
In  dealing  with  the  history  of  God's  past  Eevelations — with 
the  ages  before  the  advent,  with  the  earthly  life  and  Eevela- 
tion  of  Jesus  Christ,  with  the  subsequent  course  of  God's 
Providence  in  His  Church — we  are  dealing  with  that  which 
has  already  been.  It  stands  in  concrete  reality  before  us, 
and  we  can  reason  from  it  as  a  thing  known  in  its  totality 
and  its  details.  But  when  the  subject  of  Eevelation  is  that 
which  is  yet  to  be,  especially  that  which  is  yet  to  be  under 
forms  and  conditions  of  which  we  have  no  direct  experience, 
the  case  is  widely  altered.  Here  it  is  at  most  outlines  we 
can  look  for ;  and  even  these  outlines  will  be  largely  clothed 
in  figure  and  symbol;  the  spiritual  kernel  will  seek •  material 
investiture  to  body  itself  forth ;  the  conditions  of  the  future 
will  require  to  be  presented  largely  in  forms  borrowed  from 
known  relations.^  The  outstanding  thoughts  will  be  sufficiently 
apparent,  but  the  forms  in  which  these  thoughts  are  cast  will 
partake  of  metaphor  and  image. 

Examples   of   undue    literalism    in    the   interpretation    of  RitschVs 
prophetic  language  will  occur  to  everyone ;  as  an  example  on  ^^J^^^^°^  ^f 
the  other  side,  I   may  instance  Eitschl,  who,  because  of  the 
figurative  character   of    the   language  employed,  sweeps   the 
whole  of  the  New  Testament  eschatology  on  one  side,  and 
simply  takes  no  account  of  it.     This  is  a  drastic  method, 
which  makes  us  wonder  why,  if  these  representations  convey 
no  intelligible  representations  to  the  mind,  use  was   made  of 
them  at  all.     With  Eitschl,  the   sole  thing  of  value  is  the  Ritschi  and 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  for  the  realisation  of  which  we  ^f°!'  '''j^' 

o  '  kingdom  cj. 

are  to  labour  in  this  world.  The  form  which  the  kingdom  of  God- 
God  will  assume  beyond  this  life  we  cannot  know,  and  need 
not  concern  ourselves  about.  The  recoil  from  this  one-sided 
position  of  Eitschl  is  seen  in  the  further  development  of  his 
school,  particularly  in  Kaftan,  who  precisely  reverses  Eitschl's 
standpoint,  and  transports  the  good  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
^  Cf.  Fairbairn  on  Prophecy,  chap.  iv.  sec.  4. 


378    THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

entirely  into  the  life  beyond.     "  The  certainty  of  an  eternal 

life  in  a  kingdom  of   God,"  he  says,  "  which   is  above   the 

world,  which  lies  to  us  as  yet  in   the   beyond,  is  the  very 

The  nearer      nerve  of  our  Christian  piety."  ^     This  is  an  exaggeration  on 

aim  of  Christ-  ^^  other  side,  in  opposition  to  which  the  truth  of  Kitschl's 

ianity — the  ,  ,  .       , 

coming  of  the   vicw  has  to  be  Contended  for,  that  there  is  a  kingdom  of 
kingdom  of      Qq^j  ^^  \^^  striven  for  even  in  this  world.     What  did  Christ 

God  on  earth.  „•«  .  i-r.  i  •  t«t 

come  for,  if  not  to  impart  a  new  life  to  humanity,  which, 
working  from  within  outwards,  is  destined  to  transform  all 
human  relations — all  family  and  social  life,  all  industry  and 
commerce,  all  art  and  literature,  all  government  and  relations 
among  peoples — till  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  are  become 
the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ  ?  ^  Whether 
more  slowly  or  more  rapidly,  whether  peacefully  or,  as  Scrip- 
ture seems  to  indicate,  by  a  succession  of  crises,  surely  this 
grand  result  of  a  kingdom  of  God  will  be  brought  about ; 
and  it  is  our  duty  and  privilege  to  pray  and  labour  for  it. 
Relation  of  What  is  the  reproach  which  is  sometimes  brought  against 
this  to  modern  Christianity  by  its  enemies,  but  that  of  "  other- worldliness  " 

social  move-  "       " 

vients.  — of  exclusive  devotion  to  a  good  beyond  this   life,  to  the 

neglect  of  interests  lying  immediately  to  hand  ?  And  what 
is  the  remedy  for  this  reproach,  but  to  show  that  Christianity 
is  a  power  also  for  temporal  and  social  salvation,  a  leaven 
which  is  to  permeate  the  whole  lump  of  humanity  ?  It  is  on 
this  side  that  a  great  and  fruitful  field  opens  itself  up  for 
Christian  effort  in  the  present  day  ;  on  this  side  that  Christ- 
ianity finds  itself  in  touch  with  some  of  the  most  character- 
istic movements  of  the  time.  The  ideals  of  the  day  are 
pre-eminently  social ;  the  key- word  of  Positivism  is  "  Altruism  " 
— the  organisation  of  humanity  for  social  efforts ;  the  call  is 
to  a  "  service  of  humanity " ;  ^  the  air  is  full  of  ideas,  schemes, 

^  The  sentence  is  quoted  from  Pfleiderer,  Beligioiisphilosophle,  ii.  p.  206 
(Eng.  trans.).  Cf.  Kaftan,  Wesen,  pp.  67,  71,  171,  173,  214,  213,  etc.;  Wahr- 
heit,  p.  547,  etc. 

2  Rev.  xi.  15. 

^  Cf.  Cotter  Morisou's  The  Service  of  Man.  "The  worship  of  deities  has 
passed  into  'the  Service  of  Man.'     Instead  of  Theolatry,  we  have  Anthropo- 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    379 

Utopias,  theories  of  social  reform ;  and  we  who  believe  that 
Christianity  is  the  motive  power  which  alone  can  effectually 
attain  what  these  systems  of  men  are  striving  after,  are 
surely  bound  to  put  our  faith  to  the  proof,  and  show  to  men 
that  in  deed  and  in  truth,  and  not  in  word  only,  the  kingdom 
of  God  has  come  nigh  to  them.  We  know  something  of  what 
Christianity  did  in  the  Koman  Empire  as  a  power  of  social 
purification  and  reform ;  ^  of  what  it  did  in  the  middle  ages  in 
the  Christianising  and  disciplining  of  barbarous  nations ;  of 
the  power  it  has  been  in  modern  times  as  the  inspiration  of 
the  great  moral  and  philanthropic  movements  of  the  century  ;2 
and  this  power  of  Christianity  is  likely  to  be  yet  greater  in 
the  future  than  in  the  past.  Tliere  is  yet  vast  work  to  be 
accomplished  ere  the  kingdom  of  God  is  fully  come.^ 

This,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  be  the  nearer  aim  of  Christ-  History  has 
ianity — the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of   God  on  earth;  but^^"^^'^."  , 

•/  o  o  ^  traitsthon  to 

beyond  this  there  is,  as  certainly,  another  end.  Even  on  eschatology 
earth  the  kingdom  of  God  does  not  consist  supremely,  ox^^^^^^' 
even  peculiarly,  in  the  possession  of  outward  good,  but  in  the 
inward  life  of  the  Spirit,  in  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy 
in  the  Holy  Ghost.*  History,  too,  moves  onward  to  its  goal, 
which  is  not  simply  a  transformed  society,  but  a  winding  up 
of  all  terrestrial  affairs,  and  the  transition  from  a  world  of 
time  to  a  new  order  of  things  in  eternity,  in  which  the  good 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  will  be  perfectly  realised. 

In  dealing  with  the  eschatology  proper  of  the  Christian  The  positive 
view,  it  will  be  of  advantage  to  turn  our  attention  first  to  JJ^^  ^^^^^^ 
those  aspects  of  it  which   stand  out  distinct  and  clear.     I  Christian 

latry  ;  the  divine  service  has  become  human  service." — P.  265.  As  if  the 
truest  service  of  God  did  not  carry  in  it  the  service  of  humanity. 

1  Cf.  Loring  Brace's  Gesta  Chrisii ;  Schmidt's  Social  Results  of  Early 
Christianity  (Eng.  trans.) ;  Uhlhorn's  Christian  Charity  in  tJie  Early  Church; 
Lecky's  History  of  European  Morals,  etc. 

2  Mr.  Stead,  himself  an  enthusiast  in  social  work,  says  :  "Most  good  work  is 
done  by  Christians.  Mrs.  Besant  herself  expressed  to  me  that  they  did  very 
little  indeed,  and  those  who  did  were  only  those  who  like  herself  had  been 
brought  up  Christians." — Church  of  the  Future,  p.  9. 

3  See  Appendix  on  **The  Idea  of  the  Kingdom  of  God." 
*  Rom.  xiv.  17. 


view. 


38o    THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY, 


Three  things 
clear : — 
I.  The  end  as 
respects  the 
believer  is 
conformity  to 
the  image  of 
the  Son. 


2.  This  in- 
cludes likeness 
to  His  glorious 
body  ;  the 
Resurrection. 


(I)  The  Re- 
demption of 
the  body  not 
an  accident^ 
but  an  essen- 
tial part  of 
the  Christian 
vieiv. 


have  said  that  a  truly  purposeful  life  is  only  possible  on  the 
basis  of  a  world-view  which  has  a  definite  aim.  What  that 
aim  is  in  the  Christian  view,,  as  respects  its  positive  and 
bright  side,  is  seen  in  the  light  of  the  Incarnation.  There 
are  three  points  here  which  seem  to  stand  out  free  from  all 
uncertainty. 

1.  The  aim  of  God  as  regards  believers  is  summed  up  in 
the  simple  phrase  —  conformity  to  the  image  of  the  Son. 
"  Whom  He  foreknew,  He  also  foreordained  to  be  conformed 
to  the  image  of  His  Son,  that  He  might  be  the  First-born 
among  many  brethren."  ^  This  is  the  one  absolute  light-point 
in  the  eternal  future.  The  mists  and  shadows  which  rest  on 
other  parts  of  the  eschatological  problem  do  not  affect  us 
here.  We  see  not  yet  all  things  put  under  humanity,  "  but 
we  behold  Him  who  hath  been  made  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels,  even  Jesus,  because  of  the  suffering  of  death  crowned 
with  glory  and  honour,"  ^  and  we  know  that  our  destiny  is  to 
be  made  like  Him.  This  is  conformity  to  type  in  the  highest 
degree.  By  what  processes  the  result  is  to  be  brought  about 
we  may  not  know,  but  the  end  itself  is  clear — the  assimilation 
begun  on  earth  shall  be  perfected  above. 

2.  This  conformity  to  Christ  includes  not  only  moral  and 
spiritual  likeness  to  Christ,  but  likeness  to  Him  also  in  His 
glorious  body ;  that  is,  the  Eedemption  of  the  body,  life  in  a 
glorified  corporeity.  Difficulties  rise  here  of  course  in  great 
numbers,  and  the  question  will  be  put,  "  How  are  the  dead 
raised,  and  with  what  manner  of  body  do  they  come  ? "  ^ 
But,  first,  I  would  say  that  there  are  certain  thiugs  here  also 
which  stand  out  clear. 

(1)  First  of  all,  this  doctrine  of  the  Eedemption  of  the 
body  is  needful  for  the  completion  of  the  Christian  view.  It 
is  not  an  accident,  but  an  essential  and  integral  part  of  it.  It 
is  essential  to  a  complete  Eedemption,  as  we  saw  in  speaking 
of  immortality,  that  not  the  soul  only,  but  man  in  his  whole 
complex    personality,    body    and    soul    together,    should    be 

1  Rom.  viii.  29  (R.V.).        ^  Heb.  ii.  8,  9  (R.V.).        ^  i  Cor.  xv.  35  (R.V.). 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    381 

redeemed.  In  the  disembodied  state,  the  believer  indeed  is 
with  Christ,  rests  in  the  blessedness  of  unbroken  fellowship 
with  Him,  but  it  is  the  resurrection  which  is  the  perfection 
of  his  life.^ 

(2)  I  say,  next,  that  this  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  (2)  This 
the  body  is  not  exposed  to  some  of  the  objections  often  made  ^^^^^^^^  ^°^ 
to  it.     How,  it  is  asked,  can  the  same  body  be  raised,  when  so7ne  of  the 
it   is    utterly   decayed,  and    the  particles   of    which   it   ^^^^  objections  made 

against  it. 

composed  are  scattered  to  the  winds  of  heaven,  or  perhaps 

taken    up    into    other    bodies  ?      But    the    doctrine    of    the  True  doctrine 

resurrection  does  not  involve  any  such  belief.     The  solution  ^-v  ^  ^^^^^^^' 

''  tion — bodily 

lies,  I  think,  in  a  right  conception  of  what  it  is  which  con-  identity, 
stitutes  identity.  Wherein,  let  us  ask,  does  the  identity  even  '^^^^^ 
of  our  present  bodies  consist  ?  Not,  certainly,  in  the  mere 
identity  of  the  particles  of  matter  of  which  our  bodies  are 
composed,  for  this  is  continually  changing,  is  *in  constant 
process  of  flux.  The  principle  of  identity  lies  rather  in  that 
which  holds  the  particles  together,  which  vitally  organises 
and  constructs  them,  which  impresses  on  them  their  form  and 
shape,. and  maintains  them  in  unity  with  the  soul  to  serve  as 
its  instrument  and  medium  of  expression.  It  lies,  if  we  may 
so  say,  in  the  organic,  constructive  principle,  which  in  its  own 
nature  is  spiritual  and  immaterial,  and  adheres  to  the  side  of 
the  soul.  At  death,  the  body  perishes.  It  is  resolved  into 
its  elements  ;  but  this  vital,  immaterial  principle  endures, 
prepared,  when  God  wills,  to  give  form  to  a  new  and  grander,  ^ 

because  more  spiritual,  corporeity.     The  existence  of  mystery 
here  I  "rant ;  we  cannot  understand  the  resurrection  from 
natural  causes,  but  only,  as  Christ  teaches  us,  from  the  power        • 
of  God.2     It  is  a  miracle,  and  the  crowning  act  of  an  economy 
of  miracles.      But  we  need  not  make  the  mystery  greater 

1  The  idealistic  school,  on  the  other  hand,  speak  slightingly  of  life  in  the 
body.  "A  renewed  'embodiment,'"  says  Mr.  Green,  "if  it  means  anything, 
would  be  but  a  return  to  that  condition  in  which  we  are  but  parts  of  nature,  a 
condition  from  which  the  moral  life  is  already  a  partial  deliverance."—  Works,  iii. 
p.  206.     Was  Plotinus  then  right  wdien  he  blushed  that  he  had  a  body  ? 

2  Matt.  xxii.  29. 


382     THE  INCARNA TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTIN Y, 

than  it  is  by  insisting  on  a  material  identity  between  the 

new  body  and  the  old,  which  is  no  part  of  the  doctrine  of 

Scripture — indeed,  is  expressly  contradicted  by  the  words  of 

PauVs  the  apostle,  touching  on  this  very  point.     "  Thou  foolish  one," 

analogy.  ^^^^  Paul,  "  that  which  thou  thyself  sowest  is  not  quickened 

except  it  die ;  and  that  which  thou  sowest,  ihoii  sowest  not  the 

hody  which  shall  he,  but  a  bare  grain,  it  may  chance  of  wheat, 

or  of  some  other  kind,  but  God  giveth  it  a  body  even  as  it 

pleaseth  Him,  and  to  each  seed  a  body  of  its  own."  ^     In  the 

case  supposed,  we  see  very  clearly,  first,  that  the  identity 

consists  only  in  a  very  minute  degree,  if  at  all — and  then 

only  accidentally  —  in  identity  of  material  particles  ;    and, 

second,  that  the  real  bond  lies  in   the  active,  vital  principle 

which  connects  the  two  bodies. 

{Z)Nota  (3)  A  third  point  is,  that  the  resurrection  contemplated  is 

resurrection  at  ^^^^  ^  rcsurrcction  at  death,  but  a  future  event  connected  with 

death,  but  a 

future  event,  the  Consummation  of  all  things.  The  opposite  view  is  one 
which  has  had  many  modern  advocates, — among  them  the 
authors  of  The  Unseen  Universe  ;  ^  but,  though  it  professes  to 
stay  itself  on  the  expressions,  "  a  house  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens,"  "  clothed  upon  with  our  habitation 
which  is  from  heaven,"  ^  I  do  not  think  that  this  view  accords 
with  the  general  representations  of  Scripture,  which  always 
contemplate     the    resurrection    as    future,    and    regard    the 

1  1  Cor.  XV.  36-38  (R. V.).  Cf.  Origen,  De  Principiis,  ii.  6  :  "For  him  the  re- 
surrection is  not  the  reproduction  of  any  particular  organism,  but  the  preservation 
of  complete  identity  of  person,  an  identity  maintained  under  new  conditions, 
which  he  presents  under  the  apostolic  figure  of  the  growth  of  the  plant  from 
the  seed  ;  the  seed  is  committed  to  the  earth,  perishes,  and  yet  the  vital  power 
which  it  contains  gathers  a  new  frame  answering  to  its  proper  nature." — West- 
cott  in  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography,  iv.  p.  121. 

'^  Unseen  Universe,  pp.  200-211  ;  and  on  Swedenborg's  views,  pp.  63,  64. 
Thus  also  Hunger  in  his  Freedom  of  Faith:  "This  change  necessarily  takes 
place  at  death,  A  disembodied  state,  or  state  of  torpid  existence  between 
death  and  some  far-off  day  of  resurrection,  an  under-world  where  the  soul  waits 
for  the  reanimation  of  its  body  :  these  are  old-world  notions  that  survive  only 
through  chance  contact  with  the  Christian  system." — P.  309.  Then,  were 
Hymenseus  and  Philetus  not  right  who  said  that  "the  resurrection  is  past 
already,"  and  in  Paul's  view  overthrew  the  faith  of  some  ?  (2  Tim.  ii.  18.)  Cf. 
Newman  Smyth's  Old  Faiths  in  New  Lights,  chap.  viii. 

3  2Cor.  V.  1,  2(R.V.). 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    383 

believer's  state  as,  till  that  time,  one  of  being  "  unclothed." 
What  Scripture  does  seem  to  teach  is,  that  meanwhile  a 
preparation  for  this  spiritual  body  is  going  on,  a  spiritual 
basis  for  it  is  being  laid,  through  the  possession  and  working 
of  Christ's  Spirit.^ 

3.  The   doctrine   of    the   Christian   consummation   carries  3.  The  per- 
with  it,  further,  the  idea  that,  together  with  the  perfectincr  ^ififi^gofthe 

°  X  o         Church  carries 

the  believer,  or  of  the  sons  of  God,  there  will  be  a  perfecting  with  it  the 
or  glorification  even  of  outward  nature.     This  is  implied  in  ^^'^^^^^'^•^  ^^ 

nature. 

the  possession  of  a  corporeity  of  any  kind,  for  that  stands  in 
relation  to  an  environment,  to  a  general  system  of  things.  A 
new  heavens  and  earth  there  must  be,  if  there  is  to  be 
glorified  corporeity.  Scripture,  accordingly,  makes  clear  that 
nature  also,  the  creation  also,  will  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  vanity  and  corruption  under  which  it  is  at  present 
held.2  It  is  needless  for  us  to  attempt  to  anticipate  what 
changes  this  may  imply ;  how  it  is  to  be  brought  about,  or 
how  it  stands  related  to  the  changes  in  the  material  universe 
predicted  by  science.     The  day  alone  will  declare  it. 

Connected  with  these  views  and  anticipations  of  \}i\Q  o^oiw- Pictorial  and 
summation,  are  certain  pictorial  and  scenic  elements  in  the  ^'^^^^^  ^  ^' 

^  ments : 

Christian  eschatology,  to  which  attention  must  now  be  given,  i.  The  Per- 
Such  are  the  descriptions  of  the  second  Advent  and  of  the  ■^^'^^^  ^^^^"^  •* 

hcTM  to  be 

general  Judgment.     Here  belong  the  eschatological  discourses  interpreted! 
and  sayings  of  Christ  and  His  apostles,  in  regard  to  which, 
again,   the   question    is,   How   are    they   to  be   interpreted  ? 
Taking,  first,  those  which  relate  to  Christ's  personal  return  to  Beyschlag's 
the  world,  I  might  quote  Beyschlag  as  a  typical  example  of  ^^^^* 
how  these  pictorial  and  scenic  elements  are  treated  by  many 
who  are  indisposed  to  take  a  literal  view  of  their  import. 
''  Jesus,"  he  says,  "  grasps  up  together  in  the  sensible  image 
of  His  coming  again  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  all  that  which 

1  The  Scriptures  mention  also  a  resurrection  of  the  wicked  (John  v.  29  ; 
Acts  xxiv.  15  ;  Rev.  xx.  12),  likewise,  we  cannot  doubt,  connected  with  Christ's 
appearance  in  our  nature,  but,  beyond  describing  it  as  a  resurrection  of  con- 
demnation, they  throw  little  light  upon  its  nature. 

2  Rom.  viii.  21  ;  2  Pet.  iii.  13. 


384    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

lay  beyond  His  death — the  whole  glarious  reversal  of  His 
earthly  life  and  the  death  on  the  cross,  from  His  resurrection 
on  till  the  perfecting  of  His  kingdom  at  the  last  day ;  and  the 
more  we  keep  in  view  the  genuinely  prophetic  nature  of  this 
comprehensive  sense-image,  and  how  it  shares  the  essential 
limits  of  all  prophecy,  the  more  is  a  solution  found  of  the  at 
first  apparently  insoluble  difficulty  of  this  prophetic  part  of 
The  Coming,  a  His  doctrine."  ^  Now,  I  think  a  careful  study  of  the  passages 
process  in        ^-^^  compel  US  to  apfree  with  this  writer  on  one  main  point, 

which  many  x  <=>  i.  ' 

elements  flow    namely,  that  Jesus  does  not  always  speak  of  His  coming  in 
together.  ^^  same  scusc  ;  that  it  is  to  Him  rather  a  process  in  which 

many  elements  flow  together  in  a  single  image,  than  a  single 
definite  event,  always  looked  at  in  the  same  light.^  Thus,  He 
says  to  the  high  priest,  with  obvious  reference  to  the  prophecy 
in  Daniel,  "  Henceforth,"  that  is,  from  this  time  on,  "  ye  shall 
see  the  Son  of  Man  sitting  at  the  right  hand  of  power,  and 
coming  on  the  clouds  of  heaven."^  He  came  again  to  His 
disciples  after  the  resurrection ;  He  came  in  the  mission  of 
the  Comforter ;  He  came  in  the  power  and  spread  of  His  king- 
dom, especially  after  the  removal  of  the  limitations  created  by 
the  existing  Jewish  polity,  which  seems  to  be  the  meaning  in  the 
passage, "  There  be  some  of  them  that  stand  here  which  shall 
in  no  wise  taste  of  death,  till  they  see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in 
His  kingdom";*  He  has  come  in  every  great  day  of  the  Lord 
in  the  history  of  His  Church ;  He  will  come  yet  more  con- 
Stiil,  a  Per-  spicuously  in  the  events  of  the  future.  Yet  I  cannot  agree 
^h\tFT^^  ^^'^^  Beyschlag  when,  on  these  grounds,  he  would  exclude 

^  Leben  Jesu,  i.  p.  356. 

2  That  Jesus  did  not  anticipate  His  immediate  return,  but  contemplated  a 
slow  and  progressive  development  of  His  kingdom,  is  shown  by  many  indica- 
tions in  the  Gospels.  Cf.  on  this  subject,  Beyschlag,  Lehen  Jcsu,  i.  pp.  354-356; 
Reuss,  Hist,  of  Christ.  Theol.,  i.  pp.  217-218  ;  Bruee's  Kingdom  of  God, 
chap.  xii. 

3  Matt.  xxvi.  64  (R.V.).  Cf.  Dan.  viii.  13,  14.  In  Daniel's  vision  the  "one 
like  unto  a  Son  of  Man  "  comes  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  receive  a  kingdom 
from  the  Ancient  of  Days,  not  to  judge  the  world. 

*  Matt.  xvi.  28  (R.V.).  Mark  has  "till  they  see  the  kingdom  of  God  come 
with  power"  (ix.  1);  Luke  simply,  ''till  they  see  the  kingdom  of  God" 
(ix.  27). 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    385 

altogether  a  final,  personal  advent  of  Jesus,  a  visible  return 
in  power  and  glory  to  the  world.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Christ's  words  on  this  subject,  repeated  by  His  apostles,  are 
altogether  too  explicit  and  of  too  solemn  an  import  to  be 
explained  away  into  mere  metaphor.  I  would  agree,  there- 
fore, with  the  Church  catholic  in  its  confession,  "  From  thence 
He  shall  come  to  judge  the  quick  and  the  dead."  In  Bey- 
schlag's  case  it  seems  the  more  arbitrary  to  deny  this,  as  he 
fully  admits  the  reality  of  Christ's  resurrection,  and,  if  not  of 
His  visible  ascent,  at  least  of  His  actual  bodily  reception 
into  heaven.  His  words  are,  "  What  then  was  the  original 
thought  of  the  ascension  ?  What  else  can  it  have  been  than 
that  of  the  elevation  of  Jesus  above  the  limits  of  the  earthly 
life,  of  His  translation  into  another,  supra-mundane,  Divine 
form  of  existence — in  a  word,  of  His  exaltation  or  glorifica- 
tion ? "  ^  If  this  be  so,  there  is  surely  no  incongruity  in  the 
thought  that  He  who  thus  went  away  shall  again  appear  in 
manifested  glory. 

It  is  not  otherwise  with  the  pictures  we  have  of  a  final  2.  The  General 
act  of  Judgment  as  the  accompaniment  of  this  reappearance-^^  ^"^^^ ' 
of  the  Lord.  Here,  also,  it  is  correct  to  speak  of  a  continuous 
judgment  of  the  world.  The  history  of  the  world,  as  we 
often  hear,  is  the  judgment  of  the  world.  Yet  the  represen-  its  certainty. 
tations  which  Christ  Himself  gives  us  of  a  gradual  ripening 
of  both  good  and  evil  to  the  harvest,  then  of  a  final  and 
decisive  separation  ^ — ^joined  with  the  similar  representations 
of  the  apostles^ — compel  us,  it  seems  to  me,  to  speak  of  a  day 
of  reckoning,  when  God  shall  judge  the  secrets  of  men  by 
Christ  Jesus ;  which  shall  be  at  once  a  vindication  of  God's 
action  in  the  government  of  the  world,  and  a  decision  upon 
the  issues  of  the  individual  life.  From  a  teleological  view  of 
the  world,  also,  as  well  as  from  a  survey  of  its  existing  imper- 
fections, it  is  felt  that  there  is  an  inherent  fitness,  if  not  a 
moral  necessity,  in  the  supposition  of  such  a  last  judgment 

^  Lehen  Jesu,  i.  p.  448.  ^  Matt.  xiii.  30,  49,  etc. 

'^  Acts  xvii.  31 ;  Rom.  ii.  16  ;  2  Cor.  v.  10,  etc. 

25 


386    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

which  shall  form,  as  it  were,  the  dAnouement  of  the  great 
Parabolic  drama  of  universal  history.^  It  is  manifest,  on  the  other 
character  of     ^^^^A  ^\^^^  ^y^  ^jjg  descriptions  and  pictures  which  we  have  of 

descriptions.  ^  ^ 

this  dread  event  are  so  charged  with  figurative  and  parabolic 
elements,  that  we  can  infer  nothing  from  them  beyond  the 
great  principles  on  which  the  judgment  will  proceed. 

///.  The  dark      III.  By  these  steps  we  are  led  up,  in  the  consideration  of 
side  oft  IS      ^^^  j^g^  thino^s,  to  that  which  is  for  us  the  question  of  supreme 

question — the  °  ^  ^ 

destiny  of  the   conccrn  on  this  subject — the  question  of  individual  destiny. 

-cozcked.  J  Y^Q^^jQ  spoken  of  this  already  as  regards  the  believer.     But 

what  of  the  shadow  alongside  of  the  light  ?  What  of  the 
judgment  of  condemnation  alongside  of  the  judgment  of  life  ? 
What  of  the  wrath  of  God  abiding  on  the  unbeliever,  along- 
side of  the  blessedness  of  those  who  are  saved  ?  These  ques- 
tions are  not  arbitrarily  raised,  but  are  forced  upon  us  by  the 
plain  statements  of  Scripture,  by  the  fears  and  forebodings  of 
the  guilty  conscience,  and  by  the  anxiety  and  perplexity  they 

Three  theories  are  Causing  to  many  hearts.     To  the  questions  thus  raised, 

on  this  subject ;, ,  .  i  i  ♦  i  • 

three  mam  answers  have  been  given,  and  are  given. 

1.  The  first  is  that  of  dogmatic  Universalism.  This  was 
I.  Dogmatic  the  view  of  Origen  in  the  early  Church,^  and  is  the  view  of 
mversa  ism.  gchleiermacher,  expressed  in  the  words,  "  that  through  the 
power  of  Eedemption  there  will  result  in  the  future  a  general 
restoration  of  all  human  souls"  ;^  the  view  expressed  yet  more 
dogmatically  by  Dr.  Samuel  Cox,  "  While  our  brethren  hold 
the  Eedemption  of  Christ  to  extend  only  to  the  life  that  now  is, 
and  to  take  effect  only  on  some  men,  we  maintain,  on  the 
contrary,  that  it  extends  to  the  life  to  come,  and  must  take 
effect  on  all  men  at  the  last " ;  *  the  view  breathed  as  a  wish 
by  Tennyson^ — 

"The  wish  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave.  "^ 

^  Cf.  Martensen,  Dorner,  Van  Oosterzee,  Luthardt,  for  illustrations  of  this 
thought. 

2  De  Pri7idpii.8,  i.  6.  3  j)^^  christl  Glauhe,  ii.  p.  505. 

*  Salvator  Mundi,  11th  ed.  p.  225.  ^  /^^  Meynoriam. 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY,    387 

It  is  a  view  which,  I  am  sure,  we  would  all  be  glad  to  hold, 
if  the  Scriptures  gave  us  light  enough  to  assure  us  that  it 
was  true. 

2.  The  second  answer  is  that  of  the  theory  of  Annihilation,  2.  The  doc- 
or,  as  it  is  sometimes  called.  Conditional  Immortality.     This  ^''"^^  °f 

Annihilation. 

is  the  direct  opposite  of  the  universalistic  view,  inasmuch  as  Conditional 
it  assumes  that  the  wicked  will  be  absolutely  destroyed,  or  ^"""ortaiity. 
put  out  of  existence.  Eothe  and  others  have  held  this  view 
among  continental  theologians ;  ^  in  this  country  it  is  best 
known  through  the  writings  of  Mr.  Edward  White.  A 
kindred  view  is  that  of  Bushnell,  who,  reasoning  "  from  the 
known  effects  of  wicked  feeling  and  practice  in  the  reprobate 
characters,"  expects  "  that  the  staple  of  being  and  capacity  in 
such  will  be  gradually  diminished,  and  the  possibility  is  thus 
suggested  that,  at  some  remote  period,  they  may  be  quite 
wasted  away,  or  extirpated."  ^  The  service  which  this  theory 
has  rendered  is  as  a  corrective  to  Universalism,  in  laying 
stress  on  those  passages  in  Scripture  which  appear  to  teach  a 
final  ruin  of  the  wicked. 

3.  The  third  answer  is  that  which  has  been  the  prevailing  3.  The  doc- 
one  in  the  Protestant  Church,  the  theory  of  an  eternal  punish-  J^J^^^ 
mcnt  of  the  wicked  in  a  state  of  conscious  suffering ;  a  theory.  Punishment. 
also,  with  which,  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  been  commonly 
presented,  a  strong  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  at  present  exists. 

A  modification  of  this  theory  is  that  which  supposes  the 
ultimate  fate  of  the  wicked — or  of  those  who  are  the  wicked 
here — to  consist  in  the  punishment  of  loss,  rather  than  in 
that  of  eternal  suffering. 

Such  are  the  views  that  are  held  ;  what  attitude  are  we  Fundamental 
to  take  up  towards  them?      I  shall  best  consult  my  own ^^'^'^^■^'" ^^^'^ 

^  ^        down : 

feelings  and  sense  of  duty  by  speaking  frankly  what  I  think 
upon  the  subject.     Here,  in  the  first  place,  I  would  like  to 

1  Dogmatih,  iii.  p.  108.  Ritsclil,  too,  teaches  that  if  there  are  any  who 
oppose  themselves  absolutely  to  the  realisation  of  the  Divine  plan,  their  fate 
would  be  annihilation.— i?ec/i^.  und  Ver.  ii.  pp.  129,  140-142.  But  the  case  is 
purely  hypothetical,  iii.  p.  363. 

2  Forgiveness  and  Law,  p.  147. 


388    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

lay  down  one  or  two  fundamental  positions  which  seem  to 
me  of  the  nature  of  certainties. 

1.  Theprin-         1.  I  would  lay  down,  as  the  first  and  great  fundamental 
ciple  of  certain  certitude,  the  truth  enunciated  by  the  prophet,  "  Say  ye  of 

retribution 

for  sin.  the  rightcous,  that  it  shall  be  well  with  him ;  for  they  shall 

eat  the  fruit  of  their  doings.  Woe  unto  the  wicked !  it  shall 
be  ill  with  him ;  for  the  reward  of  his  hands  shall  be  given 
him  "  ;  ^  in  other  words,  the  great  and  fundamental  principle 
of  certain  retribution  for  sin.  This  is  a  principle  we  cannot 
hold  too  clearly  or  too  strongly.  Whatever  tends  to  tamper 
with  this  principle,  or  to  weaken  its  hold  upon  the  conscience, 
is  alien  to  the  true  Christian  view.  By  unalterable  laws 
impressed  upon  the  nature  of  man  and  on  the  universe, 
righteousness  is  life,  and  sin  is  inevitable  misery  and  death.^ 
Omnipotence  itself  could  not  reverse  this  law,  that  so  long  as 
the  sinner  continues  in  his  sin  he  must  suffer.  On  the  other 
hand,  where  this  principle  is  firmly  grasped,  there  ought,  I 
think,  to  be  much  room  left  for  difference  of  views  on  points 
which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  are  obscure  and  tentative. 

2.  Need  of  2.  I  think,  in  the  next  place,  a  strong  distinction  ought  to 
distinguishing  ^^^  drawn   between   those   thinojs  which   Scripture  expressly 

between  what  ^  r  r  j 

Scripture  tcaches,  and  those  things  on  which  it  simply  gives  no  light ; 
in  regard  to  which  it  neither  affirms  nor  denies,  but  is  simply 
silent.     Here  our  wisdom  is  to  imitate  its  caution,  and  refrain 

simply  silent,  from  dogmatism.  I  confess  I  marvel  sometimes  at  the  con- 
fidence with  which  people  pronounce  on  that  which  must  and 
shall  be  through  the  eternities  and  eternities — the  ages  and 
ages — of  God's  unending  life,  during  which  also  the  soul  of 

1  Isa.  iii.  10,  11  (R.V.). 

2  Mr.  Greg  also  has  his  doctrine  of  future  retribution.  "  Must  not  a  future 
world  in  itself— the  condition  of  'spiritual  corporeity'  alone— bring  with  it 
dreadful  retribution  to  the  wicked,  the  selfish,  and  the  weak  ?  In  the  mere 
fact  of  their  cleared  perceptions,  in  the  realisation  of  their  low  position,  in 
seeing  themselves  at  length  as  they  really  are,  in  feeling  that  all  their  work  is 
yet  to  do,  in  beholding  all  those  they  loved  and  venerated  far  before  them, 
away  from  them,  fading  in  the  bright  distance,  may  lie,  must  lie,  a  torture,  a 
purifying  fire,  in  comparison  with  which  the  representations  of  Dante  and 
Milton  shrivel  into  baseness  and  inadequacy."— Creerf  of  Christendom,  p.  280. 


teaches  and 
subjects  on 
which  it  is 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    389 

man  is  to  exist ;  and  this  in  respect  of  so  appalling  a  subject 
as  the  future  fate  of  the  lost.  There  is  room  here  for  a  wise 
i^gnosticism.  I  prefer  to  say  that,  so  far  as  my  light  goes,  I 
see  no  end,  and  there  to  stop. 

3.  I  hold  it  for  a  certainty,  that  to  deal  with  all  the  sides  3.  A  larger cai- 
and  relations  of  this  difficult  subject  we  would  require  a  much  'f  ""'  '''^'^''^ 

^  than  we  at 

larger  calculus  than  with  our  present  light  we  possess.     ^\i2X  present  possess. 
chiefly  weighs  with  many  in  creating  dissatisfaction  with  the  ^^^^^^^M  « 

,    r^^         ^       '         '  large  view  of 

current  Church  view  is  not  so  much  special  texts  of  Scripture  the  issues  of 

as  rather  the  general  impression  produced  upon  the  mind  by  ^^^  Christian 

the  whole  spirit  and  scope  of  the  gospel  Eevelation.     Starting 

with  the  character  of  God  as  Christ  reveals  it ;  with  the  fact 

of   the   Incarnation ;    with   the   reality  and  breadth   of  the 

Atonement ;     with    the    glimpses    given    into    the   issues   of 

Christ's  work,  the  feeling  is  produced  in  every  thoughtful 

mind,  that   the  sweep  of  this  great  scheme  of  Incarnation 

and  Eedemption  cannot  be  exhausted  in  the  comparatively 

meagre  results  which  we  see  springing  from  it  here, — meagre, 

I  mean,  in  comparison  with  the  whole  compass  of  the  race 

or  even  of  those  who  are  brought  outwardly  within  the  range 

of  its  influence.     What,  men  are  asking  with  a  constantly  The  question 

heavier  sense  of  the  burden  of  the  difficulty,  of  the  untold  ^-^^'^^'^^''^'^^''• 

millions  who  have  never  heard  of  Christ  at  all,  of  the  millions 

and  millions  who  have  never  even  had  the  chance  of  hearing 

of  Him  ?     What,  even  within  the  limits  of  Christendom,  of 

the  multitudes,  as  they  must  be  reckoned,  in  comparison  with 

the   really  Christ-like  in   our  midst,  who   give   no  evidence 

of    true    regeneration,    vast    numbers    of    whom    are    living 

openly  worldly  and  godless  lives  ?     We  feel  instinctively  that 

the  last  word  has  not  been — cannot  be — spoken  by  us  here. 

It  may  be  said,  and  with  much  truth,  that  for  those  who  Degrees  of 

have  the  light,  there  is  no  excuse.      Salvation  has  been  put  '•^•^/^«-^^'^/^^'<?' 

"  _  -^  ^     even  under 

within   their   reach,  and  they  have   deliberately  rejected  it.  ^^^^^z 
But  even  here,  are  there  not  elements  we  dare  not  overlook  ?  ^^^^^^^.?' 
Men  are  responsible  for  the  use  they  make  of  light,  but  how 
much  here  also  is  not  due  to  the  individual  will,  which  is 


390    THE  INCARNA TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 


Criticism  of 
theories  : 

I.  Scripture 
does  not 
warrant 
dogmatic 
Universalism. 


crossed  by  influences  from  heredity,  from  environment,  from 
up-bringing,  from  pressure  of  events !  God  alone  can  disentangle 
the  threads  of  freedom  in  the  web  of  character  and  action, 
and  say  how  much  is  a  man's  individual  responsibility  in  the 
result,  as  distinguished  from  his  share  in  the  common  guilt 
of  the  race.^  It  is  certain,  from  Christ's  own  statement,  that, 
in  the  judgment  of  Omniscience,  all  these  things  are  taken 
into  account,  and  that  even  in  the  administration  of  punish- 
ment there  are  gradations  of  penalty,  proportionate  to  men's 
knowledge  and  opportunities ;  that,  as  Paul  says,  there  is  a 
distinction  made  between  those  who  have  "  sinned  without 
law,"  and  those  who  have  "  sinned  under  law."  ^ 

These  principles  being  laid  down,  I  proceed  to  offer  a  few 
remarks  on  the  various  theories  which  have  been  submitted. 

1.  And,  first,  I  cannot  accept  the  view  of  dogmatic 
Universalism,  There  is  certainly  no  clear  and  certain 
Scripture  which  affirms  that  all  men  will  be  saved ;  on  the 
other  hand,  there  are  many  passages  which  look  in  another 
direction,  which  seem  to  put  the  stamp  of  finality  on  the 
sinner's  state  in  eternity.  Even  Archdeacon  Farrar,  so  strong 
an  advocate  of  this  theory,  admits  that  some  souls  may  ultim- 
ately be  lost ;  ^  and  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  if  even  one  soul 
is  lost  finally,  the  principle  is  admitted  on  which  the  chief 
difficulty  turns.      I  am  convinced    that    the  light  and  airy 


1  Maudsley  says:  "When  we  reflect  how  much  time  and  what  a  multitude 
of  divers  experiences  have  gone  to  the  formation  of  a  character,  what  a  complex 
product  it  is,  and  what  an  inconceivably  intricate  interworking  of  intimate 
energies,  active  and  inhibitive,  any  disj^lay  of  it  in  feeling  and  will  means,  it 
must  appear  a  gross  absurdity  for  anyone  to  aspire  to  estimate  or  appraise  all 
the  component  motives  of  a  particular  act  of  will.  ...  To  dissect  any  act  of 
will  accurately,  and  then  to  recompose  it,  would  be  to  dissect  and  recompose 
humanity."— i^ofZy  and  Will,  p.  29.     But  see  below. 

2  Rom.  ii.  12  (R. v.). 

^  "I  cannot  tell  whether  some  souls  may  not  resist  God  for  ever,  and  there- 
fore may  not  be  for  ever  shut  out  from  His  presence,  and  I  believe  that  to  be 
without  God  is  '  hell ' ;  and  that  in  this  sense  there  is  a  hell  beyond  the  grave  ; 
and  that  for  any  soul  to  fall  even  for  a  time  into  this  condition,  though  it  be 
through  its  own  hardened  impenitence  and  resistance  of  God's  grace,  is  a  very 
awful  and  terrible  prospect ;  and  that  in  this  sense  there  may  be  for  some  souls 
an  endless  hQlV— Mercy  and  Judgment,  p.  485. 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    391 

assertions  one  sometimes  meets  with  of  dogmatic   Univers- 

alism  are  not  characterised  by  a  due  sense  of  the  gravity  of 

the  evil  of  sin,  or  of  the  awful  possibilities  of  resistance  to 

goodness  that  lie  within  the  human  will.      It  seems  to  me 

plain  that  deliberate  rejection  of  Christ  here  means,  at  the 

very  least,  awful  and  irreparable  loss  in  eternity ;  that  to  go 

from  the  judgment-seat  condemned,  is  to  exclude  oneself  in 

perpetuity   from   the    privilege  and    glory  which   belong  to 

God's  sons.     Even  the  texts,  some  of  them  formerly  quoted,  The  passages 

which  at  first  sight  might  seem  to  favour  Universalism,  are  "f'^'^'^^'^  ^'J- 

^  '  favour  of 

admitted  by  the  most  impartial  expositors  not  to  bear  this  this  view 
weight  of  meaning.  We  read,  e.g.,  of  "  a  restoration  of  all  ^^^<^^^^'"^' 
things  " — the  same  that  Christ  calls  the  TraXi^^ev^aia — but 
in  the  same  breath  we  are  told  of  those  who  will  not  hearken, 
and  will  be  destroyed.^  We  read  of  Christ  drawing  all  men 
unto  Him ;  ^  but  we  are  not  less  clearly  told  that  at  His 
coming  Christ  will  pronounce  on  some  a  tremendous  condem- 
nation.^ We  read  of  all  things  being  gathered,  or  summed  up, 
in  Christ,  of  Christ  subduing  all  things  to  Himself,  etc. ;  but 
representative  exegetes  like  Meyer  and  Weiss  show  that  it  is 
far  from  Paul's  view  to  teach  an  ultimate  conversion  or 
annihilation  of  the  kingdom  of  evil.^  I  confess,  however, 
that  the  strain  of  these  last  passages  does  seem  to  point  in  the 
direction  of  some  ultimate  unity,  be  it  through  subjugation, 
or  in  some  other  way,  in  which  active  opposition  to  God's 
kingdom  is  no  longer  to  be  reckoned  with. 

2.  Neither  can  I  accept  the  doctrine  of  the  Annihilation  2.  Scripture 
of  the  Wicked.     In  itself  considered,  and  divested  of  some  of  ^^^  ^^\  .     . 

•^  '  ivarrantAnni- 

the  features  with  which  Mr.  White  clothes  it  in  his  Life  in  hilationism. 
Christ,  this  may  be  admitted  to  be  an  abstractly  possible 
hypothesis,  and  as  such  has  received  the  assent,  as  before 
stated,  of  Eothe  and  others  who  are  not  materialistically 
disposed.  There  is  a  certain  sense  in  which  everyone  will 
admit  that  man  has  not  a  necessary  or  inherent  immortality, 

1  Matt.  xix.  28  ;  Acts  iii.  21,  23  (R.V.).  ^  John  x.  32. 

2  Matt.  vii.  23,  xxv.  41.  *  See  Note  C. — Alleged  Pauline  Universalism. 


392    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY, 

that  he  depends  for  his  continued  existence,  therefore  for  his 

immortality,  solely  on  the  will  and  power  of  God.     Man  can 

never  rise  above  the  limits  of  his  creaturehood.     As  created, 

The  hypothesis  he  is,  and  must  remain,  a  dependent  being.     It  is,  therefore, 

abstractly        ^  possible  Supposition — one  not  a  priori  to  be  rejected — that 

not  scriptur-    though   Originally  made  and   destined  for  immortality,  man 

ally  justified.    ^^^^  \i2,'^Q  this  dcstiny  cancelled.     There  is  force,  too,  in 

what  is  said,  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  utility  of  keeping 

a  being  in  existence  merely  to  sin  and  suffer.     Yet,  when  the 

theory  is  brought  to  the  test  of  Scripture  proof,  it  is  found 

to  fail  in  evidence. 

Edward  (1)  Stress  is  laid  on  those  passages  which  speak  of  the 

Wutest  ^'^^'■^  destruction  of  the  wicked,  of  their  perishing,^  of  their  beiucr 

criticised:  '  r  o'  o 

(i)  Its  supposed  consumed  in  fire,  as  chaff,  tares,  branches,  etc.^  So  far  as  the 
scriptural  -^^^^  class  of  passagcs  is  concerned,  they  are  plainly  meta- 
phorical, and,  in  face  of  other  evidence,  it  is  difficult  to  put  on 
Internal  any  of  them  the  meaning  that  is  asked.  For  this  destruction 
'TtZfhJoT-  ^^^^^  °^  ^^®  ungodly  at  the  day  of  judgment,  at  the  day  of 
the  %vicked  the  Lord.  "  Sudden  destruction  "  an  apostle  calls  it ;  ^  yet  it 
nc^xdestroyed    -g     ^^^  ^f  ^j^-g  theory  that  the  wicked  are  not  annihilated 

at  death.  ^  -^ 

at  the  day  of  judgment,  but  live  on  in  suffering  for  an 
indefinitely  prolonged  time,  as  a  punishment  for  their 
offences,  the  greatest  sinners  suffering  most.  In  this  respect, 
the  theory  approximates  to  the  ordinary  view,  for  it  makes 
the  real  punishment  of  the  sinner  lie  in  the  period  of  his 
conscious  existence,  and  the  annihilation  which  comes  after 
is  rather  a  merciful  termination  of  his  sufferings  than  the 
crowning  of  his  woe.  If  Mr.  White's  theory  is  to  be  made 
consistent  with  itself,  it  ought  to  provide  for  the  immediate 
annihilation  of  the  wicked  at  death,  or  at  least  at  the  judg- 
ment. In  reality,  however,  the  "  destruction  "  comes  at  the 
judgment,  and  the  "annihilation"  not  till  long  after;  so  that, 
on  his  own  principles,  we  cannot  argue  from  the  mere  word 
to  the  fact  of  annihilation. 

1  Matt.  vii.  13 ;  2  Thess.  i.  9  ;  2  Cor.  ii.  15  ;  2  Pet.  ii.  12,  etc. 

2  Matt.  iii.  12,  xiii.  30,  50 ;  John  xv.  6,  etc.  ^  ^  xhess.  v.  3. 


THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    393 

(2)  Another  thing  which  suggests  itself  in  regard  to  this  (2)  Shuts  out 
theory  is  that,  taken  strictly,  it  seems  to  shut  out  all  grada- •^'"'^^f '"  "' 

•^  °  punishment^ 

tions   of    punishment ;     the   end   of    all    being   "  death,"   i.e.  or  escapes 
"  annihilation."      If,  to  escape  this,  reference  is  made  to  the  ^'^"  ^^^^  ^^ 

inconsistency. 

longer  or  shorter  period  of  the  suffering  before  annihilation, 
this  shows,  as  before,  that  it  is  in  the  conscious  sufferings,  not 
in  the  annihilation,  that  the  real  punishment  is  supposed  to  be. 

(3)  But  the  crowning  objection  to  this  theory — so  far  as  (3)  its  non- 
proof  from  Scripture  is  concerned — is  that  in  its  use  of  the  '^^/f  ^^^  ^^^ 

^  ^  of  terms 

words  "life"  and  "death,"  it  misses  the  true  significance  of  ''life''  and 

these  Bible  terms.     Life  is  not,  in  Scripture  usage,  simple  '''^^^^^' ' 

existence  ;  death  is  not  simple  non-existence,  but  separation 

from  true  and  complete  life.     This  theory  itself  being  witness, 

the  soul  survives  in  the  state  of  natural  death.     It  passes 

into  the  intermediate  condition,  and  there  awaits  judgment. 

Life,  in  short,  is,  in  its  Scripture  sense,  a  word  with  a  moral 

and  spiritual  connotation ;  a  person  may  not  possess  it,  and 

yet  continue  to  exist.      "  He  that  obejeth  not  the  Son,"  we 

are  told,  "  shall  not  see  life,  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth 

on  him."  ^      But  so  long  as  the  wrath  of  God  abides  (fievei)  on 

him,  he  must  abide.     So  far  as  Scripture  goes,  therefore,  this 

theory  is  not  proved.     It  must  remain  a  mere  speculation, 

and  one  which  cuts  the  knot  rather  than  unties  it. 

It  is  interesting  to  mark  that  Mr.  White  himself  seems  Afr.  White 
little  satisfied  with  his  theory,  and  does  his  best  to  relieve  it  '''^^f'^ffi''^ 

*'  with  his  own 

of  its  harsher  features.      If  the  thought  is  terrible  of  the  theory— 
countless  multitudes  who  leave   this  world  without  having  •^/^'^!,  ^^''^^-^ 

m  Future 

heard  of  Christ,  or  without  deliberate  acceptance  of  Him,  Probation. 
being  doomed  to  endless  suffering,  it  is  scarcely  less  appalling 
to  think  of  these  myriads,  after  longer  or  shorter  terms  of 
suffering,  being  swept  from  existence  by  the  fiat  of  Omni- 
potence. Mr.  White  feels  the  weight  of  this  difficulty,  and 
tries  to  alleviate  it  by  the  thought  of  a  prolonged  probation 
in  Hades.2  Here,  he  thinks,  we  find  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  heathen;   and  of  many  more  whose  oppor- 

1  John  iii.  36  (R.V.).  ^  LifQ  in  Christy  chap.  xxii. 


Hon  to 
Universalism. 


394    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

tunities  have  not  been  sufficiently  great  to  bring  them  to 
clear  decision.  I  have  no  doubt  that  Mr.  White  cherishes  in 
his  heart  the  hope  that  by  far  the  greater  proportion  of 
mankind  will  thus  be  saved ;  that,  in  consequence,  the  finally 
Approxima-  lost  wiU  be  Comparatively  few.  In  other  words,  just  as  in 
the  admission  of  prolonged  periods  of  penal  suffering  his 
theory  was  seen  approximating  to  that  of  eternal  punishment, 
so  here  we  see  it  stretching  out  hands,  as  it  were,  on  the 
other  side,  towards  "  the  larger  hope  "  of  Universalism.  It 
is  certainly  a  curious  result  that  a  theory  which  begins  by 
denying  to  man  any  natural  immortality — which  takes  away 
the  natural  grounds  of  belief  in  a  future  state — should  end 
by  transferring  the  great  bulk  of  the  evangelising  and  con- 
verting work  of  the  gospel  over  to  that  future  state  ;  for, 
assuredly,  what  is  accomplished  there  must  be  immense  as 
compared  with  what,  in  his  view,  is  done  on  earth.  •  This 
brings  me — 
3.  The  theory  3.  To  spcak  of  the  Ordinary  doctrine,  and  as  a  proposed 
of  Future        alleviation  of  this,   of   the  theory  of  a  Future  Probation,  a 

Probation.  '  "^ 

theory  which  we  have  just  seen  is  held  also  by  Mr.  Edward 
White.     By  future  probation  is  meant  here  probation,  not 
after  the  judgment,  but    intermediately  between  death  and 
Its  wide  judgment.     This  is   a  theory  which,  as  is   well  known,  has 

found  wide  acceptance  among  believing  theologians  on  the 
continent,  and  also  in  America,  and  is  advanced  by  its 
adherents  as  a  solution  of  the  difficulties  which  arise  from 
supposing  that  all  who  leave  this  world  without  having  heard 
of  Christ,  or  having  definitely  accepted  Him,  necessarily 
perish.  It  is  the  theory  held,  e.g.^  by  Dorner,  Oosterzee, 
Martensen,  Godet,  Luthardt,  Gretillat,  and  many  others.  No 
one,  it  is  said,  will  be  lost  without  being  brought  to  a  know- 
ledge of  Christ,  and  having  the  opportunity  given  him  of 
accepting  His  salvation.  Every  man  must  be  brought  to  a 
definite  acceptance  or  rejection  of  Christ,  if  not  here,  then 
hereafter.  The  theory  is  believed  to  be  supported  by  the 
well-known  passages  in  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  which  speak 


acceptance  in 
recent  times. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    395 

of  a  preaching  by  Christ  to  the  spirits  in  prison,  and  of  the 
gospel  being  preached  to  the  dead.^ 

Yet,  when  all  is  said,  this  theory  must  be  admitted  to  be  Based  more 
based  more  on  general  principles  than  on  definite  scriptural  ^'^  ■^'^"^^'''^'^ 

.    „  .  ■•■  principles  than 

mtormation.      Our   own   Church  is    not   committed  on    ^\iQ^  on  definite 
subject ;  indeed,  as  I  have  occasion  to  remember,  in  framing  ^f^'^P^^^'^ 

-,        -r\      T         ,  L  '  ,  inforfuation. 

Its  Declaratory  Act,  it  expressly  rejected  an  amendment 
designed  to  bind  it  to  the  position  that  probation  in  every 
case  is  limited  to  time.  The  Synod  acted  wisely,  I  think, 
in  rejecting  that  amendment.  All  the  same,  I  wish  now  to 
say  that  I  do  not  much  like  this  phrase,  "  Future  Probation." 
Least  of  all  am  I  disposed  with  some  to  make  a  dogma  of  it. 
There  are  three  facts  in  regard  to  the  scriptural  aspect  of  this 
theory  which  ought,  I  think,  to  make  us  cautious. 

(1)  The  first  is  the  intense  concentration  of  every  ray  oi  Facts  which 
exhortation  and  appeal  into  the  present.     "  Now  is  the  accept-  ^^^^^^ 

^      caution : 

able  time  ;  behold,  now  is  the  day  of  salvation."  ^     This  is  the  (i)  Concentra- 
strain   of    Scripture   throughout.       Everything   which  would  ^^^'' ''/^^^''-^ 

rayofexhor- 

weaken  the  force  of  this  appeal,  or  lead  men  to  throw  over  tation  and 
into   a  possible   future  what  ought    to   be   done   now,  is   a  «/A«^  ^^^^0 

,.     .  .-  the  present, 

distinct  evil. 

(2)  The  second  is  the  fact  that,  in  Scripture,  judgment  is  (2)  The 
invariably  represented  as  proceeding  on  the  matter  of  this-^.^^^'''?'f 

°  invariably 

life,  on  the  "deeds  done  in  the  body."  ^     The  state  after  death  represented  as 
is  expressly  described,  in  contrast  with  the  present  life,  ^.^P^'oceedmgon 

^  J  '  if  >        the  data  of 

one  of  "judgment."*  In  every  description  of  the  judgment,  or  this  life. 
allusion  to  it,  it  is  constantly  what  a  man  has  been,  or  has 
done,  in  this  life,  which  is  represented  as  the  basis  on  which 
the  determination  of  his  final  state  depends.  There  is  not  a 
word,  or  hint,  to  indicate  that  a  man  who  would  be  found  on 
the  left  hand  of  the  King,  or  who  would  pass  under  con- 
demnation, on  the  basis  of  his  earthly  record,  may  possibly 
be  found  on  the  other  side,  and  be  accepted,  on  the  ground  of 
some  transaction  in   the  state  between  death  and  judgment. 

1  1  Pet.  iii.  18-20,  iv.  6.  2  2  Cor.  vi.  2  (R.V.). 

3  E.g.,  Matt.  xxv.  31-46 ;  2  Cor.  v.  10 ;  Rev.  xx.  12.  ^  Heb.  ix.  27. 


396    THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY, 

Surely  this  does  not  agree  well  with  a  "  future  probation  " 
theory,  but  would  rather  require  us  to  suppose  that,  in 
principle  at  least,  man  is  presumed  to  decide  his  destiny  here. 
(3)  The  silence  (3)  There  is,  as  the  converse  of  these  facts,  the  silence  of 
ofScripttire  gc^ipture  on  the  subject  of  probation  beyond  ;  for  the  passages 
Probation—  in  1  Peter,  even  accepting  the  interpretation  which  makes 
limits  of  the     \^^yq.  refer  to  a  work  of  Christ  in  the  state  of  the  dead,  form 

application  of  ,  i  •   i  i     -i  i 

I  Pet.  iii.  19,  surely  a  slender  foundation  on  which  to  build  so  vast  a 
20,  iv.  6.  structure.  The  suggestions  they  offer  are  not  to  be  neglected. 
But  neither  do  they  speak  of  general  probation,  if  of  proba- 
tion at  all ;  nor  give  information  as  to  the  special  character 
of  this  preaching  to  the  dead,  or  its  results  in  conversion ; 
least  of  all,  do  they  show  that  what  may  apply  to  the 
heathen,  or  others  similarly  situated,  applies  to  those  whose 
opportunities  have  been  ample.  I  have  spoken  of  the 
influences  of  heredity,  etc.,  as  an  element  to  be  taken 
account  of  in  judgment ;  but  we  must  beware,  even  here,  of 
forgetting  how  much  responsibility  remains.  Will  is  at  work 
here  also ;  personal  volition  is  interweaving  itself  with  the 
warp  of  natural  circumstance  and  of  hereditary  predisposition. 
In  the  sphere  of  heathenism  itself — even  apart  from  the 
direct  preaching  of  the  gospel  —  there  is  room  for  moral 
decision  wider  than  is  sometimes  apprehended,  and  a  type  of 
will  is  being  formed  on  which  eternal  issues  may  depend. 
Yet  the  issites  I  rccognise,  howcvcr,  in  the  light  of  what  I  have  stated 
of  life  must      ^j^q^j^  ^]^e  VLQ.^ii  of  a  larger  calculus,  that  the  issues  of  this 

somehow  be  ° 

brought  to  a  life  must  prolong  themselves  into  the  unseen,  and,  in  some 
bearing  m  the  ^^^  unknown  to  US,  be  brought  to  a  bearing  there.  All  I 
plead  for  is,  that  we  should  not  set  up  a  definite  theory  where, 
in  the  nature  of  things,  we  have  not  the  light  to  enable  us 
to  do  so.  This  again  is  a  reason  for  refusing  to  acquiesce  in 
many  of  the  dogmatic  affirmations  which  are  advanced  in  the 
name  of  a  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment.  Suffering  and  loss 
beyond  expression  I  cannot  but  conceive  of  as  following  from 
definite  rejection  of  Christ;  nor  do  I  see  anything  in  Scrip- 
ture to  lead  me  to  believe  that  this  loss  can  ever  be  repaired. 


THE  INCARNATION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY.    397 

How  this  will  relate  itself  to  conditions  of  existence  in  eternity 
I  do  not  know,  and  beyond  this  I  decline  to  speculate. 

The   conclusion    I    arrive   at    is,   that   we    have  not    the  Result— we 
elements  of  a  complete  solution,  and  we  ought  not  to  attempt  ^^'"^  ""^^  ^^^ 
it.     What  visions  beyond  there  may  be,  what  larger  hopes,  complete 
what  ultimate  harmonies,  if  such  there  are  in  store,  will  come  ^°^"^^^^^' 
in  God's  good  time ;  it  is  not  ours  to  anticipate  them,  or  lift 
the  veil  where  God  has  left  it  drawn!    What  Scripture  wishes 
us  to  realise  is  the  fact  of  probation  now,  of  responsibility  here. 
We  should  keep  this  in  view,  and,  concentrating  all  our  exhor- 
tations and  entreaty  into  the  present,  should  refuse  to  sanction 
hopes  which  Scripture  does  not  support ;  striving,  rather,  to 
bring  men   to   live   under  the   impression,  "  How   shall   we 
escape,  if  we  neglect  so  great  salvation ! "  (Heb.  ii.  3). 

Here  I  bring  these  Lectures  to  a  conclusion.  No  one  is  Comiusion  of 
more  conscious  than  myself  of  the  imperfection  of  the  out-  ^^^^^*^'^^' 
lines  I  have  sought  to  trace  ;  of  the  thoughts  I  have  brought 
before  you  in  the  wide  and  important  field  over  which  we 
have  had  to  travel.  Only,  in  a  closing  word,  would  I  state 
the  deepened,  strengthened  conviction  which  has  come  to 
myself  out  of  the  study,  often  prolonged  and  anxious  enough, 
which  the  duties  of  this  Lectureship  have  entailed  on  me : 
the  deepened  and  strengthened  conviction  of  the  reality  and 
certainty  of  God's  supernatural  Eevelation  to  the  world, — 
of  His  great  purpose  of  love  and  grace,  centring  in  the 
manifestation  of  His  Son,  but  stretching  out  in  its  issues 
through  all  worlds,  and  into  all  eternities, — of  a  Eedemption 
adequate  to  human  sin  and  need,  the  blessings  of  which  it  is 
our  highest  privilege  to  share,  and  to  make  known  to  others. 
With  this  has  gone  the  feeling — one  of  thankfulness  and 
hope — of  the  breadth  of  the  range  of  the  influence  of  this 
new  power  which  has  gone  out  from  Christ :  not  confined,  as 
we  might  be  apt  to  think,  to  those  who  make  the  full  con- 
fession of  His  name,  but  touching  society,  and  the  world  of 
modern  thought  and  action,  on  all  its  sides — influencing  its  life 


398     THE  INCARNA  TION  AND  HUMAN  DESTINY. 

and  moulding  its  ideals ;  and  in  circles  where  the  truth,  as 
we  conceive  it,  is  mutilated,  and  even  in  important  parts 
eclipsed,  begetting  a  personal  devotion  to  Christ,  a  recognition 
of  His  unique  and  peerless  position  in  history,  and  a  faith  in 
the  spread  and  ultimate  triumph  of  His  kingdom,  which  is 
full  of  significance  and  comfort.  I  hail  these  omens ;  this 
widespread  influence  of  the  name  of  Jesus.  It  tells  us  that, 
despite  of  appearances  which  seem  adverse,  there  is  a  true 
kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  and  that  a  day  of  gathering  up  in 
Christ  Jesus  is  yet  to  come.  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
modern  world  has  ceased  to  need  the  Christian  view,  or  that 
in  spirit  its  back  is  turned  against  it.  The  "isms"  of  the  day 
are  numerous,  and  the  denials  from  many  quarters  are  fierce 
and  vehement.  But  in  the  very  unbelief  of  the  time  there 
is  a  serious  feeling  such  as  never  existed  before ;  and  there  is 
not  one  of  these  systems  but,  with  all  its  negations,  has  its 
side  of  light  turned  towards  Christ  and  His  religion.  Christ 
is  the  centre  towards  which  their  broken  lights  converge,  and, 
as  lifted  up,  He  will  yet  draw  them  unto  Him.  I  do  not, 
therefore,  believe  that  the  Christian  view  is  obsolete ;  that  it 
is  doomed  to  go  down  like  a  faded  constellation  in  the  west  of 
the  sky  of  humanity.  I  do  not  believe  that,  in  order  to 
preserve  it,  one  single  truth  we  have  been  accustomed  to  see 
shining  in  that  constellation  will  require  to  be  withdrawn, 
or  that  the  world  at  heart  desires  it  to  be  withdrawn.  The 
world  needs  them  all,  and  will  one  day  acknowledge  it.  It 
is  not  with  a  sense  of  failure,  therefore,  but  with  a  sense  of 
triumph,  that  I  see  the  progress  of  the  battle  between  faith 
and  unbelief.  I  have  no  fear  that  the  conflict  will  issue  in 
defeat.  Like  the  ark  above  the  waters,  Christ's  religion  will 
ride  in  safety  the  waves  of  present-day  unbelief,  as  it  has 
ridden  the  waves  of  unbelief  in  days  gone  by,  bearing  in  it 
the  hopes  of  the  future  of  humanity. 

I  thank  the  Principal  and  Professors,  I  thank  the  students, 
for  their  unfailing  courtesy,  and  for  their  generous  reception 
of  myself  and  of  my  Lectures. 


APPENDIX. 


W^t  EDea  of  t{)e  i%instrom  of  ©otJ. 


APPENDIX. 

THE  IDEA  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD. 

In  the  original  plan  of  these  Lectures  it  was  my  intention  to  Relation  of 
include  a  Lecture  on  "  The  Incarnation  and  the  New  Life  of  ^f ^-^^^^A^  ^' 

the  Course. 

Humanity;  the  Kingdom  of  God,"  which  would  have  found 
its  fitting  place  between  the  eighth  and  what  is  now  the 
ninth.  Such  a  Lecture  is  obviously  needed  to  complete  the 
course.  After  resurrection  came  exaltation.  After  Calvary 
came  Pentecost.  After  the  ministry  of  the  Son  came  the 
dispensation  of  the  Spirit.  The  new  life  proceeding  from 
Christ,  entering  first  as  a  regenerating  principle  into  the 
individual  soul,  was  gradually  to  permeate  and  transform 
society.  The  doctrine  of  Eedemption  passes  over  into  that 
of  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  design  has  reluctantly  had  to 
be  abandoned,  and  all  I  can  here  attempt,  in  addition  to  the 
brief  allusions  in  Lecture  Ninth,  is  to  give  a  few  notes  on  the 
general  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

I.  I  shall  refer  first  to  the  place  of  this  idea  in  recent/.  The  place 

theology.  of  the  idea  in 

°''  theology — 

This  idea  has  had  a  prominence  accorded  to  it  in  recent  recent  views, 
theology  it  never  possessed  before,  and  the  most  thorough- 
going attempts  are  made  to  give  it  application  in  both 
dogmatics  and  ethics.  By  making  it  the  head  -  notion  in 
theology,  and  endeavouring  to  deduce  all  particular  concep- 
tions from  it,  it  is  thought  that  we  place  ourselves  most  in 
Christ's  own  point  of  view,  and  keep  most  nearly  to  His  own 
lines  of  teaching.  Kant  here,  as  in  so  many  other  depart- 
ments,   may    be    named    as    the    forerunner ;    and    fruitful 

26 


402 


APPENDIX, 


suggestions  may  be  gleaned  from  writers  like  Schleiermacher, 
Schmid,  and  Beck.  It  is  the  school  of  Eitschl,  however, 
which  has  done  most  to  carry  out  consistently  this  all-ruling 
notion  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  making  it  the  determinative 
conception  even  in  our  ideas  of  sin,  of  the  Person  of  Christ, 
etc.  Through  their  influence  it  has  penetrated  widely  and 
deeply  into  current  theological  thought,  and  is  creating  for 
itself  quite  an  extensive  literature.^ 
Reasons  for  This    being    the    prevailing    tendency,    I    may    not    un- 

not  treating     n^turallv  be  blamed  for  not  making  more  use  of  this  idea 

the  kingdom  of  . 

God  as  the       than  I  liavc  done  in  these  Lectures. "   If  this  is  the  chief  and 
all-embracing  all- embracing,  the  all-comprehensive  and  all-inclusive  notion 

conception.  r^-t     •     > 

of  the  pure  Christian  view,  it  may  be  felt  that  the  attempt 
to  develop  the  Christian  "  Weltanschauung,"  without  explicit 
reference  to  it,  is  bound  to  be  a  failure.  I  may  reply  that  I 
have  not  altogether  left  it  out ;  it  is,  indeed,  the  conception  I 
should  have  wished  to  develop  further,  as  best  fitted  to 
convey  my  idea  of  the  goal  of  the  Christian  Redemption,  and 
'  of  the  great  purpose  of  God,  of  which  that  is  the  expression. 
J  But  I  have  another  reason.  It  is,  that  I  gravely  doubt  the 
possibility  or  desirability  of  making  this  the  all-embracing, 
all-dominating  conception  of  Christian  theology,  except,  of 
course,  as  the  conception  of  an  end  affects  and  determines  all 
that  leads  up  to  it.  And  even  here  the  idea  of  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  not  the  only  or  perfectly  exhaustive  conception. 
The  following  reasons  may  be  given  for  this  opinion : — 

1.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  so  presented  in  the  New 
Testament.       In   the   preaching   of    Christ   in   the   Synoptic 
Testament.      gospels,  this  idea  has  indeed  a  large  place.     Christ  attaches 
Himself  in  this  way  to  the  hopes  of  His  nation,  and  to  the 

^  Recent  works  in  our  own  country  are  Professor  Candlisli's  The  Kingdom  of 
God  (Cunningham  Lectures,  1884),  and  Professor  A.  B.  Bruce's  The  Kingdom 
of  God  (1889).  A  good  discussion  of  the  subject  is  contained  in  an  article  by 
D.  J.  Kostlin,  in  the  Sfudien  und  KrUlken  for  1892  (3rd  part).  I  may  mention 
also  Schm oiler's  recent  work.  Die  Lehre  vom  Eeiche  Gottes  in  den  SchHften  des 
neuen  Testaments  (1891) ;  another  by  E.  Issel  on  the  same  subject  (1891) ;  and 
a  revolutionary  essay  by  J.  Weiss,  entitled  Die  Prediyt  Jesii  vom  Reiche  Gottes 
(1892). 


I.  It  is  not  so 

presented  in 
the  New 


THE  IDEA  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD,        403 

doctrine  of  the  prophets.  Yet  the  very  variety  of  the  aspects 
of  His  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  shows  how  difficult  it  must 
be  to  sum  them  all  up  permanently  under  this  single  formula. 
In  the  Gospel  of  John,  the  idea  is  not  so  prominent,  but 
recedes  behind  that  of  "  life."  In  the  Epistles,  it  goes  still 
more  decidedly  into  the  background.  Instead  of  the  kingdom, 
it  is  Christ  Himself  who  is  now  made  prominent,  and  becomes 
the  centre  of  interest.  Harnack  notices  this  in  his  Dogmen- 
geschichte.  "  It  is  not  wonderful,"  he  says,  "  that  in  the  oldest 
Christian  preaching  'Jesus  Christ'  meets  us  as  frequently 
as  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus  the  kingdom  of  God  itself."  ^ 
1  Peter  does  not  use  the  expression ;  James  only  once.  The 
Pauline  theology  is  developed  from  its  own  basis,  without  any 
attempt  to  make  it  fit  into  this  conception.  In  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  it  is  other  ideas  that  rule.  Where  this  idea 
is  used  in  the  Epistles,  it  is  generally  with  an  eschatological 
reference.^  The  Apocalypse  is  the  book  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment which  gives  it  most  prominence.  ^ 

2.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  not  a  notion   which  can  helz^M^  an  idea 
treated  as  a  fixed  quantity.     The  greatest  possible  diversity  ^^^'^^  ^'^^  ^^ 
prevails  among  the  interpreters  as  to  what  ideas  are  to  be  fixed  qnantity, 
attached  to  this  expression.     Whether  the  kingdom  of  God 
is  something  set  up  in  this  life  (Eitschl,  Wendt,  etc.),  or  is 
something  which  has  reference  only  to  the  future  (Kaftan, 
SchmoUer,  J.  Weiss,  etc.) ;  whether  it  is  to  be  taken  in  a 
purely  ethical  and  religious  sense  (Eitschl,  etc.),  or  is  to  be 
extended    to  embrace   all    the   relations   of    existence  —  the 
family,  state,  art,  culture,  etc.  (Schleiermacher,  Beck,  etc.) ; 
what  is  the  nature  of  the  good  which  it  promises — these  and 

^  I.  p.  70.  Kaftan  similarly  remarks:  "In  Paul  also  the  doctrine  of  the 
highest  good  is  determined  through  faith  in  the  risen  and  exalted  Christ  who 
had  appeared  to  him  before  the  gates  of  Damascus.  It  can  indeed  be  said  that 
the  glorified  Christ  here  fills  the  place  taken  in  the  preaching  of  Jesus  by  the 
super-terrestrial  kingdom  of  God,  which  has  appeared  in  His  Person,  and 
through  Him  is  made  accessible  as  a  possession  to  His  disciples." — Das  Wesen, 
p.  229. 

"  Not  always,  however,  e.g.  Eom.  xiv.  17.  Besides,  wlmt  Christ  meant  by 
the  present  being  of  His  kingdom  is  always  recognised  by  these  writers. 


3-  Found 
difficuli  in 
practice  to 
bring  all 


404  APPENDIX, 

numberless  other  points  are  still  keenly  under  discussion. 
This  is  not  a  reason  for  saying  that  on  Christ's  lips  the  term 
had  no  definite  signification,  but  it  shows  that  the  time  is  not 
yet  ripe  for  making  it  the  one  and  all-inclusive  notion  in 
theology. 

3.  Even  when  we  have  reached  what  seems  a  satisfactory 
conception  of  the  kingdom,  it  will  be  found  difficult  in 
practice  to  bring  all  the  parts  and  subjects  of  theology  under 
theology  unde^^^^  j^  p^^^f  ^f  ^j^jg^  appeal  might  be  made  to  the  work  of 
those  who  have  adopted  this  as  their  principle  of  treatment.^ 
The  older  Nitzsch,  in  his  System  of  Doctrine,  says  of  a  writer 
(Theremin)  who  maintained  the  possibility  of  such  a  deduc- 
tion, that  if  he  had  really  applied  his  general  notion  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  to  a  partition  and  articulation  of  the 
Christian  doctrinal  system,  it  would  have  become  manifest  of 
itself  that  this  was  not  the  right  middle  notion  to  bind 
the  parts  together.     Schleiermacher,  and  Beck,  and  Lipsius, 

—  aUke  fail  to  carry  through  this  idea  in  their  systems.  Dither 
the  doctrines  are  viewed  only  in  this  relation,  in  which  case 
many  aspects  are  overlooked  which  belong  to  a  full  system 
of  theology  ;  or  o,  mass  of  material  is  taken  in  which  is  only 
connected  with  this  idea  in  the  loosest  way.  The  idea  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  becomes  in  this  way  little  more  than  a 
formal    scheme    or    groundwork    into    which    the    ordinary 

—  material  of  theology  is  fitted.  Ritschl,  indeed,  renounces  the 
idea  of  a  perfect  unity,  when  he  says  that  Christianity  is  an 
ellipse  with  two  foci — one  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God, 

\   the  other  the  idea  of  Eedemption.^ 

4.  The  trne  /.      4.  The  true  place  of  the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  in 

ideaisas^l  fftheology  is  as  a  teleological  conception.     It  defines  the  aim 

teieoiogicai    !  and  purpose  of  God  in  creation  and  Eedemption.     It  is  the 

^  '^'   I   highest  aim,  but  everything  else  in  the  plan  and  purpose  of 

/    God   cannot  be  deduced  from   it.      Even   as  end,  we  must 

distinguish  between  the  aim  of  God  to  establish  a  kingdom  of 

^  Cf.  article  by  Kostlin  above  referred  to. 
2  Hecht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  11. 


THE  IDEA  OE  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.        405 

God  on  earth  and  the  ultimate  end— the  unity  of  all  things 
natural  and  spiritual  in  Christ.  The  fulness  of  this  last 
conception  is  not  exhausted  in  the  one  idea  of  "  kingdom," 
though  this  certainly  touches  the  central  and  essential  fact, 
that  God  is  "  all  in  all."  ^  / 


II.  Let   us    next   consider  the   teaching  of  Jesus  on  the//.  The  teach- 
kingdom  of  God.     Here,  ing  of  Jesus  on 

the  kingdom 
of  God. 

The  king- 


1.  I  cannot  but  agree  with  those  who  think  that  the 
kingdom  of  God,  in  Christ's  view,  is  a  present,  developing 
reality .2  This  is  implied  in  the  parables  of  growth  (mustard 
seed,  leaven,  seed  growing  secretly) ;  in  the  representations  ^^^^^^y 
of  it,  in  its  earthly  form,  as  a  mixture  of  good  and  bad 
(wheat  and  tares,  the  net  of  fishes) ;  in  the  description  of 
the  righteousness  of  the  kingdom  (Sermon  on  the  Mount), 
which  is  to  be  realised  in  the  ordinary  human  relations ;  as 
well  as  in  many  special  sayings.  I  do  not  see  how  anyone 
can  read  these  passages  and  doubt  that  in  Christ's  view  the 
kingdom  was  a  presently-existing,  slowly- developing  reality,^ 
originating  in  His  word,  containing  mixed  elements,  and 
bound  in  its  development  to  a  definite  law  of  rhythm  ("  first 
the  blade,  then  the  ear,"  etc.).*  On  the  other  hand,  the  idea 
has  an  eschatological  reference.  The  kingdom  is  not  something 
which  humanity  produces  by  its  own   efforts,  but  something  I 


1  1  Cor.  XV.  28.  2  E.g.  Wendt. 

»  Cf.  as  in  earlier  note  (p.  384),  Reuss,  Hist,  of  GhHst.  Theol,  i.  pp.  217,  218 
(Eng.  trans.)  ;  Bruce,  Kingdom  of  God,  chap.  xii. 

*  The  kingdom  of  God,  in  its  simplest  definition,  is  the  reign  of  God  in 
human  hearts  and  in  society  ;  and  as  such  it  may  be  viewed  under  two  aspects  : 
(1)  the  reign  or  dominion  of  God  Himself ;  (2)  the  sphere  of  this  dominion. 
This  sphere,  again,  may  be  (1)  the  individual  soul ;  (2)  the  totality  of  such  souls 
(the  Church  invisible) ;  (3)  the  visible  society  of  believers  (the  Church) ;  (4) 
humanity  in  the  whole  complex  of  its  relations,  so  far  as  this  is  brought  under 
the  influence  of  Christ's  Spirit  and  of  the  principles  of  His  religion. 

It  is  obvious — and  this  is  one  source  of  the  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  common 
understanding — that  Christ  does  not  always  use  this  expression  in  the  same 
sense,  or  with  the  same  breadth  of  signification.  Sometimes  one  aspect,  some- 
times another,  of  His  rich  complex  idea  is  intended  by  this  term.  Sometimes 
the  kingdom  of  God  is  a  power  within  the  soul  of  the  individual ;  sometimes 
it  Ls  a  leaven  in  the  world,  working  for  its  spiritual  transformation  ;  sometimes 


dom  a  present t 
developutg 


4o6 


APPENDIX. 


which  comes  to  it  from  above.  It  is  the  entrance  into  humanity 
of  a  new  life  from  heaven.  In  its  origin,  its  powers,  its 
blessings,  its  aims,  its  end,  it  is  supernatural  and  heavenly. 
Hence  it  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  two  stadia  are  dis- 
tinguished in  its  existence — an  earthly  and  an  eternal ;  the 
"^  latter  being  the  aspect  that  chiefly  prevails  in  the  Epistles.^ 
2.  The  naiure/     2.  What  is  the  nature  of  this  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  ? 


of  this  king- 
dom of  God 
on  earth. 


(I)  The 
religious  and 
ethical  side  of 
this  kingdom 
alone  is  made 
prominent. 


In  the  Lecture,  I  have  spoken  of  it  as  a  new  principle 
introduced  into  society  which  is  fitted  and  destined  to  trans- 
form it  in  all  its  relations.  This  is  the  view  of  Schleier- 
macher,  Neander,^  Beck,  of  Dorner,  Martensen,  Harless,  in 
their  works  on  "  Christian  Ethics,"  and  of  most  Protestant 
writers.  This  view,  however,  is  contested,  and  has  to  be 
considered. 

(1)  Now,  first,  it  is  to  be  acknowledged,  that  in  Christ's 
teaching  it  is  the  spiritual,  or  directly  religious  and  ethical,  side 
of  the  kingdom  which  alone  is  made  prominent.  Those  who 
would  identify  the  kingdom  off-hand  with  social  aims  and 
endeavours,  such  as  we  know  them  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
look  in  vain  in  Christ's  teaching  for  their  warrant.  There 
the  whole  weight  is  rested  on  the  inward  disposition,  on  the 
new  relation  to  God,  on  the  new  life  of  the  Spirit,  on  the  new 
righteousness  proceeding  from  that  life,  on  the  new  hopes  and 
privileges  of  the  sons  of  God.     Everything  is  looked  at  in 


it  is  the  mixed  visible  society  ;  sometimes  it  is  that  society  under  its  ideal 
aspect ;  sometimes  it  is  the  totality  of  its  blessings  and  powers  (the  chief 
good) ;  sometimes  it  is  the  future  kingdom  of  God  in  its  heavenly  glory  and 
perfection. 

The  view  that  Christ  looked  for  a  long  and  slow  process  of  development  and 
ripening  in  His  kingdom  may  seem  to  be  opposed  by  the  eschatological  predic- 
tions in  Matt.  xxiv.  Even  here,  however,  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  a  nearer 
and  a  remoter  horizon — the  one,  referring  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  and 
the  dissolution  of  the  Jewish  state,  and  denoted  by  the  expression,  "  these 
things"  ("this  generation  shall  not  pass  away,  till  all  these  things  be  accom- 
plished," ver.  34)  ;  and  the  other,  denoted  by  the  words,  "that  day  and  hour" 
(ver.  36),  regarding  which  Christ  says,  "Of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth  no  one, 
not  even  the  angels  of  heaven,  neither  the  Son,  but  the  Father  only." 

^  The  eschatological  view  alone  is  that  taken  by  Kaftan,  Schmoller,  J.  "Weiss, 
etc. 

^  See  History  of  the  Church,  opening  paragraphs. 


THE  IDEA  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD,        407 

the  light  of  the  spiritual,  the  eternal.  We  read  nothing  in 
Christ  of  the  effects  of  His  religion  on  art,  on  culture,  on 
philosophy,  on  politics,  on  commerce,  on  education,  on  science, 
on  literature,  on  economical  or  social  reform.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  apostles.  Absorbed  in  the  immediate  work  of  men's 
salvation,  they  do  not  look  at,  or  speak  of,  its  remoter  social 
effects.  How  far  this  is  due  in  their  case  to  the  absence  of-^ 
apprehension  of  a  long  period  of  development  of  Christ's 
religion,  and  to  a  belief  on  the  impending  dissolution  of  the 
world,  I  need  not  here  discuss.^  The  fact  remains  that,  as 
already  stated,  while  regarding  the  believer  as  already  in 
God's  kingdom  and  partaker  of  its  blessings,  their  conceptions 
of  the  kingdom,  in  its  actual  manifestation,  are  mainly 
eschatological. 

(2)  But,  second,  as  it  is  certain  that  a  principle  of  this 
kind  could  not  enter  into  society  without  profoundly  affecting 
it  in  all  its  relations,  so  we  may  be  sure  that  Christ  did  not 
leave  this  aspect  of  it  out  of  account.  And  when  we  look  a 
little  deeper,  we  see  that  Christ,  though  He  does  not  lay  stress 
on  this  side,  yet  by  no  means  excludes  it,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
presupposes  and  assumes  it,  in  His  teaching.  It  is  to  be 
observed — 

{a)  Christ,  in   His  teaching,  presupposes   the  truth  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  moves   in   the  circle  of  its  conceptions. 
The  Old  Testament  moves   predominatingly  in   the  religious  {a)  The  view 
and  ethical  sphere  too,  but  there  is  a  large  material  back-  ^^^^^J^'^^^ 
ground  or  framework.     We  have  accounts  of  the  creation,  oi  presupposed— 
the  early   history  of  man,  of  his  vocation   to   replenish  the  Christ's  reia- 

.  r,  '  c    X.     tiontothe 

earth  and  subdue  it,  of  the  first  institutions  of  society,  of  the  world  and  to 
beginnings   of  civilisation,  of    the   divisions   of   nations,   etc.  •^^"'^i'- 
Christ  never  leaves  this  Old  Testament  ground.     The  world 
to  Him  is   God's  world,  and  not  the  devil's.     He  has  the 

1  Paul's  large  view  of  the  philosophy  of  history  in  Rom.  xi.,  of  a  future 
"fulness  of  the  Gentiles,"  etc.,  is  against  this  supposition.  It  is  too  hastily 
assumed  that  the  Apostle  looked  for  the  Lord's  return  in  his  own  lifetime.— See 
note  by  Professor  Marcus  Dods  on  1  Thess.  iv.  15  in  Schaff's  Pojndar  Com- 
raentary  on  the  New  Testament, 


(2)  Yet  a  prin- 
ciple which 
affects  society 
in  all  its 
relations^ 


The  recogni- 
tion of  this  by 
Christ : 


{b)  The  world 
in  its  existing 
form  hostile^ 
iut  capable  of 


408  APPENDIX. 

deepest  feeling  for  its  beauty,  its  sacredness,  the  interest  of 
God  in  the  humblest  of  His  creatures;  His  parables  are 
drawn  from  its  laws ;  He  recognises  that  its  institutions  are 
the  expression  of  a  Divine  order.  The  worlds  of  nature  and 
of  society,  therefore,  in  all  the  wealth  and  fulness  of  their 
relations,  are  always  the  background  of  His  picture.  We  see 
this  in  His  parables,  which  have  nothing  narrow  and  ascetic 
about  them,  but  mirror  the  life  of  humanity  in  its  amplest 
breadth — the  sower,  shepherd,  merchant,  handicraftsman,  the 
servants  with  their  talents  (and  proving  faithful  and  unfaithful 
in  the  use  of  them),  the  builder,  the  vineyard-keeper,  weddings, 
royal  feasts,  etc. 

{h)  The  world,  indeed,  in  its  existing  form,  Christ  cannot 
recognise  as  belonging  to  His  kingdom.     Eather,  it  is  a  hostile 
power — "  the  world,"  in  the  bad  sense.     His  disciples  are  to 
Redemption     expcct  hatred  and  persecution  in  it.    It  is  under  the  dominion 

and  renewal. 

of  Satan,  "  the  prince  of  this  world."  ^  His  kingdom  will  only 
come  through  a  long  succession  of  wars,  crises,  sorrows,  and 
terrible  tribulations.  Yet  there  is  nothing  Manichaan,  or 
dualistic,  in  Christ's  way  of  conceiving  of  this  presence  of 
evil  in  the  world.  If  man  is  evil,  he  is  still  capable  of 
Eedemption ;  and  what  is  true  of  the  individual  is  true  of 
society.  His  kingdom  is  a  new  power  entering  into  it  for 
the  purpose  of  its  transformation,  and  is  regarded  as  a 
growing  power  in  it. 
(f)  Christ's  I  (c)  Christ,  accordingly,  gives  us  many  indications  of  His 
^^.';^'^^r,^<^"  true  view  of  the  relation  of  His   kingdom  to  society.     The 

nition  of  the  \  °  •' 

Divine  order  world  is  His  Father's,  and  human  paternity  is  but  a  lower 
of  society,  and  reflection  of  the   Divine  Fatherhood.     Marriage  is  a  divine 

the  duty  of        ...  .  . 

His  disciples    institution,  to  be  jealously  guarded,  and  Christ  consecrated  it 
to  7vork  in  it,  i3y  jj^g  special  presence  and  blessing.     The  State  also  is  a 

and  save  it.       -n^-    • 

Divme  ordinance,  and  tribute  is  due  to  its  authorities.^     The 
principles  He  lays  down  in  regard  to  the  use  and  perils  of 

^  John  xii.  31,  xvi.  11,  etc. 

^  On  above  see  Matt.  vii.  11,  xix.  3-9  ;  John  ii.  1-11  (cf.  Matt.  ix.  15) ; 
Matt.  xxii.  21.  etc. 


THE  IDEA  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD,        409 


wealth ;  love  to  our  neighbour  in  his  helplessness  and  misery ; 
the  care  of  the  poor;  the  infinite  value  of  the  soul,  etc., 
introduce  new  ideals,  and  involve  principles  fitted  to  trans- 
form the  whole  social  system.  His  miracles  of  heahng  show 
His  care  for  the  body.  With  this  correspond  His  injunc- 
tions to  His  disciples.  He  does  not  pray  that  they  may  be 
taken  out  of  the  world,  but  only  that  they  may  be  kept  from 
its  evil.^  They  are  rather  to  live  in  the  world,  showing  by 
their  good  works  that  they  are  the  sons  of  their  Father  in 
heaven ;  are  to  be  the  light  of  the  world,  and  the  salt  of  the 
earth.2  Out  of  this  life  in  the  world  will  spring  a  new  type 
of  marriage  relation,  of  family  life,  of  relation  between  masters 
and  servants,  of  social  existence  generally.  It  cannot  be 
otherwise,  if  Christ's  kingdom  is  to  be  the  leaven  He  says  it 
shall  be.  The  apostles,  in  their  views  on  all  these  subjects,  ~~ 
are  in  entire  accord  with  Christ.^ 

(3)  We  may  glance  at  a  remaining  point,  the  relation  of 
the  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  to  that  of  the  Church.  If 
our  previous  exposition  is  correct,  these  ideas  are  not  quite 
identical,  as  they  have  frequently  been  taken  to  be.  The 
kingdom  of  God  is  a  wider  conception  than  that  of  the 
Church.  On  the  other  hand,  these  ideas  do  not  stand  so  far 
apart  as  they  are  sometimes  represented.  In  some  cases,  as, 
e.g,  in  Matt,  xviii.  18,  19,  the  phrase  "kingdom  of  heaven" 
is  practically  synonymous  with  the  Church.  The  Church  is, 
as  a  society,  the  visible  expression  of  this  kingdom  in  the 
world  ;  is,  indeed,  the  only  society  which  does  formally 
profess  (very  imperfectly  often)  to  represent  it.  Yet  the 
Church  is  not  the  outward  embodiment  of  this  kingdom  in  all 
its  aspects,  but  only  in  its  directly  religious  and  ethical,  i.e,  in 
its  purely  spiritual  aspect.  It  is  not  the  direct  business  of 
the  Church,  e.g.,  to  take  to  do  with  art,  science,  politics, 
general  literature,  etc.,  but  to  bear  witness  for  God  and  His 
truth  to  men,  to  preach  and  spread  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom. 


(3)  The  rela- 
tion of  the 
idea  of  the 
kingdom  of 
God  to  that  of 
the  Church. 


1  John  xvii.  15.  2  Matt.  v.  13-16. 

3  E.g.  Rom.  xiii.;  1  Tim.  ii.  1,  2  ;  Heb.  xiii.  4;  1  Pet.  ii.  13-15. 


410  APPENDIX, 

to  maintain  God's  worship,  to  administer  the  sacraments,  to 
provide  for  the  self-edification  and  religious  fellowship  of  be- 
lievers. Yet  the  Church  has  a  side  turned  towards  all  these 
other  matters,  especially  to  all  efforts  for  the  social  good  and 
bettering  of  mankind,  and  cannot  but  interest  herself  in  these 
efforts,  and  lend  what  aid  to  them  she  can.  She  has  her 
protest  to  utter  against  social  injustice  and  immorality ;  her 
witness  to  bear  to  the  principles  of  conduct  which  ought  to 
guide  individuals  and  nations  in  the  various  departments  of 
their  existence  ;  her  help  to  bring  to  the  solution  of  the 
questions  which  spring  up  in  connection  with  capital  and 
labour,  rich  and  poor,  rulers  and  subjects ;  her  influence  to 
throw  into  the  scale  on  behalf  of  "  whatsoever  things  are  true, 
whatsoever  things  are  honourable,  whatsoever  things  are  just, 
whatsoever  things  are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely, 
whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report"  (Phil.  iv.  8).  A 
wholesome  tone  in  literature,  a  Christian  spirit  in  art  and 
science,  a  healthy  temper  in  amusements,  wise  and  beneficent 
legislation  on  Christian  principles  in  the  councils  of  the  nation, 
the  spirit  of  long-suffering,  peace,  forbearance,  and  generosity, 
brought  into  the  relations  of  men  with  one  another  in  society, 
Christian  ideals  in  the  relations  of  nations  to  one  another, 
self-sacrificing  labours  for  the  amelioration  and  elevation  of 
the  condition  of  the  masses  of  the  people, — these  are  matters 

-,  in  which  the  Church  can  never  but  be  interested.  Else  she 
foregoes  her  calling,  and  may  speedily  expect  to  be  removed 

\  out  of  her  place. 


///.  The  / 

kingdom  of 
God  and  the 
new  life  of 


III.  Historically,  we  might  have  looked,  had  space  per- 
mitted, at  this  kingdom  of  God  as  the  principle  of  a  new 
life  to  humanity.     I  do  not  enter  into  this  extensive  field, 

humanity.       but  Only  remark  : 

I.  Theprin-  I      1.  The   principle   of    this   new  life   is   Christ   risen    and 

'^ifchriltrisei^^^^^^^'     ^^  ^^^^  ^'^^  ^7  ^^^   preaching  merely  that  Christ 

and  exalted,  \came  to  Set  up  the  kingdom  of  God.     The  foundation  of  it 

Iwas  laid,  not  only  in  His  Word,  but  in  His  redeeming  acts — 


,  .  THE  IDEA  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD.        411 

in  His  death,  His  resurrection,  His  exaltation  to  heaven.  His  [ 
sending  of  the  Spirit.      The  new  kingdom  may  be  said  to  ( 
have  begun  its   formal  existence  on   the  day  of  Pentecost. 
This  is  the  mistake  of  those  who  would  have  us  confine  our 
ideas  of  the  kingdom  solely  to  what  is  given  in  the  records 
of  Christ's   earthly   life.      They  would    have   us  go   behind 
Pentecost,  and  remain  there.     But  Christ's  teaching  on  earth 
could  not  anticipate,  much  less  realise,  what  His  death,  and 
the  gift  of  His   Spirit,  have   given  us.      It  is  not  Christ's  I 
earthly   life,  but  His   risen   life,  which   is   the   principle   of  I 
quickening  to  His  Church.^     He  himself  bade  His  disciples  | 
wait  for  the  coming  of  the  Spirit ;  and  told  them  that  it  was 
through   His   being   "lifted   up"   that    the   world  would  be 
brought  to  Him.     The   Spirit  would  complete  His  mission ; 
supply  what  was  lacking  in  His  teaching;  bring  to  remembrance 
what  He  had  said  to  them ;  and  would  work  as  a  power  con- 
vincing of  sin,  of  righteousness,  and  of  judgment  in  the  world.^ 

2.  This  new  life  in  humanity  is  (1)  a  new  life  in  the  12.  This 
individual,  a  regeneration  of  the  individual  soul,  a  power  of/^^^^  ^^~ 
sanctification  and  transformation  in  the  nature.  But  (2)  it 
is  further,  as  we  have  seen,  a  principle  of  new  life  in  society 
exercising  there  a  transforming  influence.  What  society  owes 
to  the  religion  of  Christ,  even  in  a  temporal  and  social 
respect,  it  is   beyond  the  power  of  man  to  tell.     It  is  this 

that  enables  us,  from  the  Christian  standpoint,  to  take  an 
interest  in  all  labours  for  the  social  good  of  men,  whether  they 
directly  bear  the  Christian  name  or  not.  The  influence  of 
Christ  and  His  ideals  is  more  apparent  in  them  than  their 
promoters  sometimes  think.  They  are  not  without  relation 
to  the  progress  of  the  kingdom. 

3.  The  kingdom  of  God  being  the  end,  is  also  the  centre,j3.  The  king- 
i.e.,  it  is  with  ultimate  reference  to  it  that  we  are  to  ^^^Adom  of  God  as 

'  1  the  centre  oj 

and    are    best   able  to   appreciate,  the   great   movements   o^Cod'sprovid- 

1  "In  truth  the  life  of  the  soul  hidden  with  Christ  in  God  is  the  keraelj^''^'^* 
of  the  Christian  religion."— Kaftan,  Da8  Wesen^  p.  76.     Kaftan  has  here  the' 
advantage  over  Ritschl,  Schleiermacher,  etc. 

2  John  xii.  32,  xiv.  26,  xv.  7-15. 


(1)  a  life  in 
the  individual 
soul; 

(2)  in  society. 


412  APPENDIX, 

I  Providence.  We  can  already  see  how  the  progress  of  inven- 
tion and  discovery,  of  learning  and  science,  of  facilities  of 
communication  and  interconnection  of  nations,  has  aided  in 
manifold  ways  the  advance  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  has 
often  heen  remarked  how  the  early  spread  of  Christianity 
was  facilitated  by  the  political  unity  of  the  Eoman  Empire, 
and  the  prevalence  of  the  Greek  tongue  ;  and  how  much  the 
revival  of  learning,  the  invention  of  printing,  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  men's  ideas  by  discovery,  did  to  prepare  the  way  for 
the  sixteenth-century  Eeformation.  In  our  own  century  the 
world  is  opened  up  as  never  before,  and  the  means  of  a  rapid 
spread  of  the  gospel  are  put  within  our  power,  if  the  Church 
has  only  faithfulness  to  use  them.  It  is  difficult  to  avoid 
the  belief  that  the  singular  development  of  conditions  in  this 
century,  its  unexampled  progress  in  discovery  and  in  the 
practical  mastery  of  nature,  the  marvellous  opening  up  of 
the  world  which  has  been  the  result,  and  the  extraordinary 
multiplication  of  the  means  and  agencies  of  rapid  communi- 
cation, together  portend  some  striking  development  of  the 
kingdom  of  God  which  shall  cast  all  others  into  the  shade, — a 
crisis,  perhaps,  which  shall  have  the  most  profound  effect 
upon  the  future  of  humanity.^  The  call  is  going  forth  again, 
"  Prepare  ye  in  the  wilderness  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make 
straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God.  Every  valley 
shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and  hill  shall  be  made 
low ;  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight,  and  the  rough 
places  plain ;  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and 
all  flesh  shall  see  it  together,  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath 

V  spoken  it."  ^ 

^  It  is  curious  how  this  feeling  of  an  impending  crisis  sometimes  finds  expres- 
sion in  minds  not  given  to  apocalyptic  reveries.  Lord  Beaconsfield  said  in 
1874  :  *'  The  great  crisis  of  the  world  is  nearer  than  some  suppose."  In  a  recent 
number  of  the  Forum,  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  remarks  :  "There  is  a  general 
ieeling  abroad  that  the  stream  of  history  is  drawing  near  a  climax  now ;  and 
there  are  apparent  grounds  for  the  surmise.  There  is  everywhere  in  the  social 
frame  an  untoward  unrest,  which  is  usually  a  sign  of  fundamental  change 
within." 

2  Isa.  xl.  3,  4  (R.V.). 


NOTES    TO    LECTURES. 


NOTES   TO   LECTUEE   I. 


NOTE  A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  THE  WORD  "WELTANSCHAUUNG"  AND 
RELATED  TERMS. 

I  DO  not  know  that  Kant  uses  this  term,  or  the  equivalent  term  "  Welt- 
ansicht,"  at  all — it  is  at  least  not  common  with  him.  The  same  is  true 
of  Fichte,  Schelling,  and  generally  of  writers  till  after  the  middle  of  this 
century.^  Yet  Kant  above  all  gave  the  impulse  to  its  use,  both  by  his 
theoretic  "Idea"  of  the  world,  and  by  his  practical  philosophy,  which 
results  in  a  "Weltanschauung"  under  the  idea  of  the  moral. 

Hegel,  however,  has  the  word,  e.g.^  "As  man,  religion  is  essential  to 
him,  and  not  a  strange  experience.  Still  the  question  arises  as  to  the 
relation  of  religion  to  the  rest  of  his  *  Weltanschauung,'  and  philosophical 
knowledge  relates  itself  to  this  subject,  and  has  to  do  essentially  with  it." 
— Eeligionsphilosophie,  i.  p.  7. 

Within  the  last  two  or  three  decades  the  word  has  become  exceedingly 
common  in  all  kinds  of  books  dealing  with  the  higher  questions  of 
religion  and  philosophy — so  much  so  as  to  have  become  in  a  manner 
indispensable.  The  following  extracts  will  illustrate  its  use,  as  well  as 
throw  light  on  some  of  the  ideas  connected  with  it.  It  will  be  observed 
that  most  of  the  passages  have  reference  to  the  widespread  conflict  of  old 
and  new  views. 

Strauss  says,  in  his  Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe  (1873)  :  "  The  ground 
on  which  I  take  my  stand  can  be  no  other  than  what  we  name  the 
modern  'Weltanschauung,'  the  laboriously  won  result  of  continuous 
natural  and  historical  investigation,  in  opposition  to  that  of  the  Christian 
church."— P.  7. 

He  speaks  of  the  contradiction  into  which  many  are  forced  by  the 
knowledge,  the  view  of  life  and  the  world  (der  Welt-  und  Lebens- 
anschauung),  of  the  present  age.— P.  5.  He  proposes  to  inquire  first, 
"  Wherein  this  '  Weltanschauung '  consists,  and  on  what  proof  it  supports 
itself  in  contrast  with  the  old  church  view"  (Ansicht) ;  then  to  ask, 
"  Whether  this  modern  view  of  the  world  (Weltansicht)  does  for  us  the 

1  But  Fichte  has  the  equivalent  "Ansicht  der  Welt,"  and  occasionally  "Weltan- 
sicht." See  especially  his  Die  Anweisung  zum  seligen  Leben  (1806),  Lect.  V. 
"Weltansicht"  is  Schopenhauer's  word. 


4i6  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

like  service  to  that,  and  whether  it  does  it  better  or  worse  than  the 
Christian  view  did  for  the  old  believers." — Pp.  11,  12. 

Luthardt,  in  like  manner,  begins  his  Apologetic  Lectures  on  Bit 
Grundwahrheiten  des  Christenthums  (1864\  vfith.  one  on  "The  Opposition 
of  Views  of  the  World  in  its  Historical  Development"  (Der  Gegensatz  der 
Weltanschauungen  in  seiner  geschichtlichen  Entwicklung). 

He  says  :  "  Over  against  the  Christian  '  Weltanschauung '  stands  a  non- 
Christian  ;  and  there  increasingly  threatens  us  the  accomplishment  of  a 
division  in  the  whole  direction  of  thought  in  the  modern  world,  which 
would  mean  a  break  with  history,  and  would  on  that  account  be  full  of 
peril." — Grundwahrheiten^  p.  1. 

Luthardt's  latest  apologetic  course  (1880)  has  for  its  title  Die  modernen 
Weltanschauungen  und  ihre  praJdischen  Konsequenzen. 

A  recent  metaphysical  writer,  Th.  Weber,  says  in  his  Preface,  quoting 
from  a  previous  work  :  "  It  is  a  fact  which  lies  patent  before  the  eyes  of 
all,  that  the  science  of  the  newer  time,  under  the  banner  of  free  inquiry, 
has  brought  to  light  a  quite  inexhaustible  number  of  views  of  the  world 
and  of  life  (Welt-  und  Lebens-ansichten)  which  already  for  long  have 
proclaimed  a  war  of  life  and  death  against  positive  Christianity.  ...  In 
place  of  the  latter  is  brought  forward,  as  something  once  for  all  estab- 
lished by  science,  what  is  wont  to  be  designated  by  the  expression — 
though  in  its  applications  an  exceedingly  indefinite  one — *  modern  view  of 
the  world '  (moderne  Weltanschauung)."  But,  adds  this  writer,  "  Science 
has  yet  by  no  means  overthrown  the  old  Christian  '  Weltansicht.' "  — 
Metaphysik.  Eine  vnssenschaftliche  Begriindung  der  Ontologie  des  positiven 
Ghristenthums,  vol.  i.  (1888).     Preface. 

The  titles  and  contents  of  recent  books  show  very  manifestly  the 
influence  of  this  term  ;  e.g.y  Dr.  Gass  entitles  a  valuable  work  (1876), 
Optimismus  und  Pessimismus  ;  Der  Gang  der  christlichen  Welt-  und  Lebens- 
ansicht.  In  the  Preface  to  this  book  he  writes  :  "  Welt-  und  Lebens- 
ansicht  sind  Lieblingsworte  unserer  Zeit "  (are  darling  words  of  our  time). 

Hartmann  designates  his  work  on  the  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious, 
Versuch  nach  einer  Weltanschauung. 

An  able  work  by  Fr.  Rieff  has  the  title.  Die  christliche  Glaubenslehre  als 
Grundlage  der  christlichen  Weltanschauung  (1876). 

Pfleiderer  has  a  work  on  Lotze's  Philosophische  Weltanschauung  nach 
ihren  Grundziigen  (1882). 

A  well- written  brochure,  which  has  had  a  remarkable  run  of  popularity 
in  Germany,  is  entitled,  Im  Kampf  um  die  Weltanschauung ;  BeJcentnisse 
eines  Theologen  (1889). 

Reference  may  be  made  to  an  able  article  by  Hermann  Schmidt  in  the 
Studien  und  KritiJcen  (1876),  which  bears  the  title,  "Die  ethischen  Gegen- 
satze  in  dem  gegenwartigen  Kampfe  der  biblischen  und  der  modern- 
theologischen  Weltanschauung  "  ("  The  Ethical  Oppositions  in  the  present 
Conflict  of  the  Biblical  and  the  Modern- Theological  View  of  the  World  "). 

Another  able  recent  production  is  Die  christliche  Weltanschauung  und 
Kant's  sittlicher  Glauhe,  by  Chr.  Schrempf  (1891). 

The  word  is  common  in  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  Ritschl,  Hermann,  Schultz, 
etc.      The  last-named,  in  his  Alttestamentliche  Theologie,  discusses  the 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  417 

content  of  the  religion  of  Israel  nnder  the  heading,  "Die  religiose 
Weltansch auung." — Pp.  493-8 1 5. 

Karl  Peters  (pessimistic  school),  in  his  work,  Willenswelt  und  Weltwille, 
has  an  abundance  of  phrases  which  show  the  wide  range  of  the  applica- 
tion of  this  term.  Thus  we  read  of  the  "Theistic,"  "Atheistic," 
"  Pantheistic,"  "  Realistic,"  "  Materialistic,"  "  Mechanistic,"  "  Buddhistic," 
"  Kantian,"  Weltanschauung,  and  a  multitude  of  similar  phrases  might 
be  cited. 

This  writer  remarks :  "  It  is  often  said  that  each  '  Weltanschauung ' 
can  be  proved  in  relation  to  the  problem  here  touched  on  (nature  of  the 
ground-principle  of  the  universe),  thus  :  Does  it  recognise  an  intentional 
finality  in  nature,  or  not  ?— that  is  the  deciding  question  which  makes  a 
sharp  distinction  between  a  mechanical  and  a  teleological  'Weltan- 
schauung.'"— P.  140. 

For  other  examples,  see  Appendix  II.  to  Lecture,  and  subsequent  notes. 


NOTE  B. 

CLASSIFICATION   OF   "  WELTANSCHAUUNGEN." 

It  is  not  easy  to  find  a  principle  of  division  which  will  yield  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  classification  of  systems  which  we  yet  readily  recognise  as 
presenting  distinct  types  of  world- view.  The  deepest  ground  of  division, 
undoubtedly,  is  that  which  divides  systems  according  as  they  do  or  do 
not  recognise  a  spiritual  principle  at  the  basis  of  the  universe.  But 
when,  by  the  aid  of  this  principle,  we  have  put  certain  systems  on  the 
one  side,  and  certain  systems  on  the  other,  it  does  not  carry  us  much 
further.  We  must,  therefore,  either  content  ourselves  with  a  simple 
catalogue,  or  try  some  other  method.  In  the  earliest  attempts  at  a  world- 
view  many  elements  are  mixed  up  together  —  religious,  rational,  and 
ethical  impulses,  poetic  personification  of  nature,  the  mythological 
tendency,  etc.,  and  classification  is  imj)ossible.  The  "  Weltanschauung  " 
at  this  stage  is  rude,  tentative,  imperfect,  and  goes  little  further  than 
seeking  an  origin  of  some  kind  for  the  existing  state  of  things,  and 
connecting  the  difi'erent  parts  of  nature  and  of  human  life  in  some 
definite  way  with  particular  gods.  The  interest  felt  in  the  soul  and  its 
fates  enlarge  this  "  Weltanschauung "  to  embrace  a  world  of  the  unseen 
(Sheol,  Amenti,  etc.).  Of  reflective  "  Weltanschauungen,"  as  these  appear 
in  history,  we  may  roughly  distinguish — 

I.  The  Phenomenalistic  and  Agnostic — which  refuse  all  inquiry  into 
causes,  and  would  confine  themselves  strictly  to  the  laws  of  phenomena. 
The  only  pure  type  of  this  class  which  I  know  is  the  Comtist  or 
Positivist,  which  contents  itself  with  a  subjective  synthesis.^  (Mr. 
Spencer's  system,  though  called  Agnostic,  is  really  a  system  of  Monism, 
and  falls  into  the  third  class.     See  Lecture  III.) 

1  A  more  extreme  type  of  view  still  is  the  denial  of  the  reality  of  the  world 
altogether — Acosmism. 

27 


4i8  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

II.  The  Atomistic  and  Materialistic  (Atheistic).  The  systems  of 
Democritus,  Epicurus,  Lucretius,  and  materialistic  systems  generally, 
are  of  this  class.  As  no  spiritual  principle  is  recognised,  the  unity  can 
only  be  sought  in  a  highest  law  of  the  elements — in  the  order  of  the 
universe  —  in  the  way  in  which  things  cohere.  (But  many  modern 
systems  of  Materialism,  again,  are  really  Monisms,  e.^r.,  Haeckel,  Strauss.) 

III.  Pantheistic  systems — and  these  constitute  a  vast  family  with  a 
great  variety  of  forms.  Here  the  universe  is  conceived  as  dependent  on 
a  first  principle  or  power,  but  one  within  itself,  of  which  it  is  simply 
the  necessary  unfolding,  and  with  which,  in  essence,  it  is  identicah 
The  systems  differ  according  to  the  view  taken  of  the  nature  of  this 
principle,  and  of  the  law  of  its  evolution.  The  principle  may  be  con- 
ceived of : 

1.  Predominatingly  as  physical — in  which  case  the  system  is  allied  to 
Materialism  (Materialistic  Pantheism). 

2.  As  the  vital  principle  of  an  organism  (Hylozoistic). 

3.  As  an  intelligent  world-soul  (Stoicism — analogous  to  fire). 

4.  Metaphysically — as  Being  (Eleatics),  Substance  (Spinoza),  etc. 

5.  Spiritually  —  as  impersonal  Reason,  or  Spirit  (Hegel),  or  Will 
(Schopenhauer,  etc.). 

Thus,  while  on  its  lower  side  Pantheism  is  indistinguishable  from 
Materialism  and  Atheism,  on  its  higher  side  it  approaches,  and  often 
nearly  merges  into.  Theism  (as  with  the  Neo-Hegelians). 

IV.  Systems  which  recognise  a  spiritual,  self-conscious  Cause  of  the 
universe.     Here  belong : 

1.  Deism — which  views  God  predominatingly  as  Creator,  but  denies 
present  communication  and  Revelation,  and  practically  separates  God 
from  the  world.  ^ 

2.  Theism — which  views  God  as  the  Living  Creator,  Immanent  Cause, 
and  Moral  Ruler  of  the  world  and  of  man. 

3.  Christian  Trinitarianism — a  higher  form  of  Theism. 

[The  division  of  systems  as  Optimistic  and  Pessimistic  has  reference 
to  another  standpoint — not  to  the  first  principle  of  the  system,  but  to  its 
ethical  character  and  end.  As  combined  with  the  others,  it  would  form 
a  cross-division.] 

There  is  yet  another  division  of  types  of  world- view  (equally  important 
for  our  subject),  based,  not  on  their  objective  character,  but  on  the  mental 
attitude  of  the  observer,  and  on  the  activities  employed  in  their  forma- 
tion. Three  main  types  of  world  -  view  may  be  here  distinguished, 
answering  to  three  distinct  standpoints  of  the  human  spirit,  from  each  of 
which  a  "  Weltanschauung"  necessarily  results.     These  are  : 

1.  The  "Scientific" — in  which  the  standpoint  of  the  observer  is  in  the 
objective  world,  and  things  are  viewed,  as  it  were,  wholly  from  without. 
Abstraction  is  made  from  the  thinking  mind,  and  only  external  relations 
(co-existence,  succession,  cause  and  eff'ect,  resemblance,  etc.)  are  regarded. 
The  means  employed  are  observation  and  induction,  and  the  end  is  the 

1  On  the  definition  of  terms  cf.  Lipsius'  Dogmatik,  pp.  88,  89 ;  and  Flint's  Anti- 
Theistic  Theories,  pp.  339,  441-445. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  419 

discovery  of  laws,  and  ultimately  of  a  highest   law,  under  which  all 
particular  phenomena  may  be  subsumed.^ 

2.  The  "  Philosophical "  —  which  precisely  inverts  this  relation.  The 
standpoint  here  is  the  thinking  Ego,  and  things  are  regarded  from  within 
in  their  relations  to  thought  and  knowledge.  It  starts  from  the  side  of 
the  thinking  mind,  as  science  from  the  side  of  the  world  as  known,  in 
abstraction  from  the  mind  knowing  it.  From  the  philosophical  stand- 
point the  world  assumes  a  very  different  aspect  from  that  which  it 
presents  to  empirical  science,  or  to  the  ordinary  irrefiective  observer.  All 
higher  philosophy  may  be  described  as  an  attempt  to  conclude  in  some 
way  from  the  unity  of  reason  to  the  unity  of  things.  The  resultant 
world- view  will  assume  two  forms,  according  as  the  point  of  departure  is 
from  the  theoretical  or  the  practical  reason :  (1)  a  theoretical  (as  in  the 
Absolutist  attempts  to  deduce  all  things  from  a  principle  given  through 
pure  thought) ;  (2)  a  moral  {e.g.,  the  Kantian). 

3.  The  "Eeligious" — which  views  everything  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
consciousness  of  dependence  upon  God,  and  refers  all  back  to  God.  It 
starts  from  the  practical  relation  in  which  man  stands  to  God  as 
dependent  on  Him,  and  desiring  His  help,  support,  and  furtherance  in 
the  aims  of  his  life  (natural,  moral,  distinctively  religious  aims).  The 
nature  of  the  religious  "  Weltanschauung "  and  its  relation  to  theoretic 
knowledge  is  discussed  later. 

At  no  time,  however,  can  these  points  of  view  be  kept  perfectly 
distinct,  and  the  claim  of  either  science  or  philosophy-  to  produce  a  self- 
sufficing  world-view  must  be  pronounced  untenable.  In  all  scientific 
theories,  as  remarked  in  the  text  (p.  7),  there  is  a  large  admixture  of 
unconscious  metaphysics.  It  is  easy  to  say,  Let  us  keep  only  to  what  we 
see  and  know  and  can  verify,  and  have  nothing  to  do  with  either  meta- 
physics or  religion.  But  the  thing  cannot  be  done.  Science  has  only  to 
inquire  a  little  into  the  meaning  of  its  own  terms,  to  go  back  a  little  on 
its  own  presuppositions,  to  ask  what  it  means  by  space,  time,  power, 
cause,  etc.,  to  find  itself  plunged  into  the  region  of  metaphysics.  Science, 
besides,  has  its  own  way  of  teaching  the  lesson  that  things  are  not  altogether 
what  they  seem  ;  and  the  student  of  nature,  as  his  studies  advance,  has 
his  confidence  in  the  first  rude  appearances  of  nature  considerably  shaken. 
It  is  not  merely  that  he  is  compelled  to  correct  his  first  sense-imptessions 

1  I  use  the  term  "scientific"  in  its  current  acceptation  as  applicable  to  the 
sciences  which  rest  on  an  inductive  basis,  without  prejudice  to  the  question  as  to 
whether  there  are  not  other  methods  of  knowledge,  and  whether  we  may  not  speak 
also  of  philosophical  and  theological  sciences.  That  the  inductive  method  is  not 
the  only  one  is  evident  from  the  two  examples  of  mathematics,  which  is  a  purely 
deductive  science,  and  logic,  which  also  is  not  inductive,  and  ranks  as  one  of  the 
philosophical  sciences.  Whether  or  not  pure  philosophy  in  its  two  branches  of 
metaphysics  and  morals  is  to  be  admitted  among  the  sciences,  will  depend  on  the 
view  we  take  of  the  legitimacy  of  its  methods  of  rational  analysis  and  synthesis— a 
subject  I  do  not  here  discuss.  But  if  these  methods  are  valid,  and  many  think 
they  are,  we  can  hardly  refuse  them  the  name  "  scientific,"  seeing  that  they  represent 
the  purest  theoretic  activities  of  which  the  mind  is  capable.  The  sense  in  which  we 
can  speak  of  theology  as  a  science  would  demand  a  discussion  for  itself. 


420  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I, 

by  maturer  knowledge  of  the  real  relations  of  things,  but  the  very  nature 
of  things  seems  changing  under  his  view.  The  tones,  colours,  smells, 
tastes,  g.gf.,  with  which  his  unsophisticated  mind  was  wont  to  clothe  the 
universe,  are  now  discovered  to  belong  to  a  world  within  himself,  while 
in  the  dark,  silent  universe  there  are  only  different  kinds  of  vibratory 
and  undulatory  motions.  This  but  leads  to  the  further  discovery— at 
least  so  his  most  trusted  guides  will  inform  him— that  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  real  universe  at  all ;  that  all  he  does  know  are  the  phenomena  or 
appearances  it  presents  to  him  ;  and  that  these  in  their  last  analysis  are 
but  sensations  and  impressions  produced  within  himself  by  unknown 
causes  which  science  must  postulate,  but  can  do  nothing  to  explain  (thus 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  Spencer,  Helmholtz,  etc.).  The  universe  seems  on  the 
point  of  disappearing  into  a  subjective  idealism  ;  and  if  this  is  to  be 
avoided,  it  can  only  be  by  going  back  on  the  real  nature  of  knowledge, 
and  on  the  manner  in  which  our  experience  of  the  world  is  built  up. 
And  this  is  philosophy.  Finally,  besides  the  world  of  matter,  there  is 
the  world  of  mind — of  thought  and  feeling  and  will — to  be  reckoned 
with  ;  and  if  science  persists  in  resolving  these  also  into  matter,  it  has  to 
show  how  moral  life  is  to  be  rescued  from  the  ruin,  or  face  the  descent 
into  Zolaism,  or  worse — something  entirely  "  earthly,  sensual,  devilish." 
Such  a  "  Weltanschauung,"  if  it  is  constructed,  is  already  condemned,  for 
human  life  will  revolt  against  it,  and  claim  a  place  for  those  ideals  and 
aspirations  it  so  ruthlessly  sacrificed. 

Insensibly,  therefore,  even  in  the  pursuit  of  science,  the  standpoint 
changes  from  science  to  philosophy  ;  but  this,  in  turn,  cannot  dispense 
with  the  material  which  the  sciences  and  the  history  of  religions  furnish 
to  it ;  and  is  equally  unable,  out  of  its  own  resources,  to  produce  an 
adequate  and  satisfying  world-view.  It  cannot  do  this,  if  it  attempts  to 
explain  the  universe  as  a  necessary  evolution  of  "Being"  or  "Thought" ;  ^ 
while  if  it  does  not  do  this,  it  must  forego  the  pretension  to  explain  the 
world  or  history  by  rational  deduction,  except  in  the  most  general  and 
formal  way.  It  cannot  therefore  take  the  place  of  religion,  or  furnish  a 
"Weltanschauung"  satisfying  to  the  religious  consciousness.  It  is  a 
well-recognised  truth  that  philosophy  has  founded  systems  and  schools 
but  never  religions.  ^ 

The  religious  world-view  is  better  capable  of  independent  existence 
than  the  others,  for  here  at  least  the  mind  is  in  union  with  the  deepest 
principle  of  all.  But  that  principle  needs  to  develop  itself,  and  in 
practice  it  is  found  that  religion  also  is  largely  influenced  in  the  con- 
struction of  its  world-views  by  the  state  of  scientific  knowledge  and  the 
philosophy  of  the  time.  The  Indian  religious  systems  are  metaphysical 
throughout.  The  early  Greek  fathers  of  the  Church  were  largely 
influenced  by  Platonism  ;  the  mediaeval  schoolmen  by  Aristotelianism  ; 
modern  theologians  by  Kant,  Hegel,  etc.     The  type  of  world-view  freest 

1  See  Lectiire  III. 

2  "A  religion,"  says  Reville,  "may  become  historical,  but  no  philosophy  has 
ever  founded  a  religion  possessing  true  historical  ^oyf&c"— History  of  Religions, 
p.  22  (Eng.  trans.) ;  cf.  Strauss,  Der  alte  und  cler  neue  Glauhe,  p.  103  ;  Hartmann, 
Religionsphilosophie,  p.  23 ;  A.  Dorner,  Das  menschl.  Erkennen,  p.  239. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L  421 

from  all  trace  of  foreign  influence  is  that  found  in  tlie  Old  Testament, 
and  comjDleted  in  the  New.  This  unique  character  belongs  to  it  as  the 
religion  of  Eevelation. 


NOTE  C. 

UNCONSCIOUS   METAPHYSIC. 


Schopenhauer  has  remarked  that  each  man  has  his  metaphysic. 

"  The  man,"  says  Zeller,  "  who  is  without  any  philosophic  standpoint 
is  not  on  that  account  without  any  standpoint  whatever ;  he  who  has 
formed  no  scientific  opinion  on  philosophical  questions  has  an  unscientific 
opinion  about  them." — Pre-Soc.  Phil.  p.  23. 

This  fact  is  not  always  remembered  by  our  modern  thinkers.  Prin- 
cipal Fairbairn  observes  : 

"  Professor  Tyndall's  presidential  address  is  memorable  enough,  were  it 
only  as  an  instance  of  sweet  simplicity  in  things  historical,  and  the  most 
high-flying  metaphysics  disguised  in  scientific  terms." — Studies,  p.  65. 

Regarding  Mr.  Spencer:  "Just  as  the  term  force  revolutionises  the 
conception  of  the  Unknowable,  so  it,  in  turn,  transmuted  into  forces, 
beguiles  the  physicist  into  the  fancy  that  he  is  walking  in  the,  to  him, 
sober  and  certain  paths  of  observation  and  experiment,  while  in  truth  he 
is  soaring  in  the  heaven  of  metaphysics." — Ibid.  p.  97. 

Professor  Caird  remarks  of  Conite  :  "  Hence,  while  he  pretends  to 
renounce  metaphysics,  he  has  committed  himself  to  one  of  the  most  in- 
defensible of  all  metaphysical  positions.  ...  It  is  a  residuum  of  bad 
metaphysics,  which,  by  a  natural  Nemesis,  seems  almost  invariably  to 
haunt  the  minds  of  those  writers  who  think  they  have  renounced  meta- 
physics altogether." — Soc.  Phil,  of  Comte,  p.  121. 


NOTE  D. 

SCOPE   OF  THE  MODERN  SCIENTIFIC   CLAIM. 

The  following  extracts  will  illustrate  the  statements  in  the  text : — 

"Unification,"  says  Mr.  Spencer,  "being  thus  the  characteristic  of 
developing  thought  of  all  kinds,  and  eventual  arrival  at  unity  being 
fairly  inferable,  there  arises  a  yet  further  support  to  our  conclusion."— 
First  Principles,  p.  553. 

"  If,"  he  says  again,  "  the  entire  visible  universe  has  been  evolved— if 
the  solar  system  as  a  whole,  the  earth  as  a  part  of  it,  the  life  in  general 
which  the  earth  bears,  as  well  as  that  of  each  individual  organism  ;  if  the 
mental  phenomena  displayed  by  all  creatures,  up  to  the  highest,  in 
common  with  the  phenomena  presented  by  aggregates  of  these  highest ; 
if  one  and  all  conform  to  the  laws  of  evolution, — then  the  necessary 


422  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L 

implication  is  that  those  phenomena  of  conduct  in  these  highest  creatures 
with  which  morality  is  concerned,  also  conform." — Data  of  Ethics^  p.  63. 

Speaking  of  Darwin's  theory,  Mr.  Clodd  says  :  "  But  that  theory  deals 
only  with  organic  evolution,  i.e.  with  the  origin  of  the  myriad  species  of 
plants  and  animals  ;  and  the  prominence  given  to  it  in  virtue  of  its  more 
immediate  interest  makes  us  apt  to  overlook  the  fact  that  it  is  only  a 
small  part  of  an  all-embracing  cosmic  philosophy.  For  whatever  lies 
within  the  phenomenal — the  seen  or  felt — and  therefore  within  the 
sphere  of  observation,  experiment,  and  comparison,  whether  galaxy  which 
only  the  telescojDe  makes  known,  or  monad  whose  existence  only  the 
microscope  reveals,  is  subject-matter  of  inquiry,  both  as  to  its  becoming 
and  as  to  its  relation  to  the  totality  of  things.  It  is  this  more  general 
conspectus  of  evolution  as  a  working  hypothesis  which,  if  it  does  not 
explain  every  fact,  is  inconsistent  with  none,  that  the  following  pages 
are  designed  to  give." — Story  of  Creation,  p.  3. 

"  No  one  can  enter  on  a  consideration  of  the  subject  of  Evolution  with 
the  expectation  of  attaining  to  clear  ideas  and  relatively  correct  conclusions 
unless  he  first  of  all  thinks  of  it  as  cosmic,  i.e.  comprehensive,  in  its 
operation,  of  the  entire  universe  of  matter  and  mind,  and  throughout  all 
time." — Chapman,  Pre-organic  Evolution,  etc.,  p.  3. 


NOTE  E. 

ANTAGONISM   OF   CHRISTIAN   AND   "  MODERN  "   VIEWS   OF   THE   WORLD — 
ANTISUPERNATURALISM   OF   THE   LATTER. 

See  passages  already  quoted  on  this  subject  in  Note  A.  I  here  add  some 
further  illustrations. 

Principal  Fairbairn  puts  the  matter  thus  :  "  The  scientific  and  religious 
conceptions  of  the  world  seem  to  stand  at  this  moment  in  the  sharpest 
possible  antagonism.  .  .  .  There  is  one  fact  we  cannot  well  overrate, — 
the  state  of  conflict  or  mental  schism  in  which  every  devout  man,  who  is 
also  a  man  of  culture,  feels  himself  compelled  more  or  less  consciously  to 
live.  His  mind  is  an  arena  in  which  two  conceptions  struggle  for  the 
mastery,  and  the  struggle  seems  so  deadly  as  to  demand  the  death  of  the 
one  for  the  life  of  the  other,  faith  sacrificed  to  knowledge  or  knowledge 
to  faith." — Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  and  History,  pp.  61,  62. 

The  uncompromising  character  of  the  conflict  and  the  nature  of  the 
issues  involved  are  well  brought  out  in  the  following  extracts  from  Mr. 
Wicksteed's  pamphlet  on  The  Ecclesiastical  Institutions  of  Holland. 

"The  religious  movement,"  he  says,  "known  in  Holland  as  that  of  the 
'  Modern  School,'  or  '  New  School,'  or  sometimes  the  '  School  of  Leiden,' 
is  essentially  a  branch  of  that  wider  religious  movement  extending  over 
the  whole  of  Europe  and  America,  which  is  a  direct  product  upon  the 
field  of  religion  of  the  whole  intellectual  life  of  the  nineteenth  century." 

"This  Modern  School,  in  the  larger  sense,  is  in  fact  essentially  the 
religious  phase  of  that  undefinable  '  Zeit-Geist,'  or  spirit  of  the  age, 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L  423 

sometimes  called  on  the  continent  'modern  consciousness,'  tlie  most 
characteristic  feature  of  which  is  a  profound  conviction  of  the  organic 
unity,  whether  spiritual  or  material,  of  the  universe. 

"  This  modern  consciousness  can  make  no  permanent  treaty  of  peace 
with  the  belief  which  takes  both  the  history  and  the  philosophic  science 
of  religion  out  of  organic  connection  with  history  and  philosophical 
science  in  general.  No  compromise,  no  mere  profession  of  a  frank 
acceptance  of  the  principles  of  the  modern  view  of  the  world,  can  in  the 
long  run  avail.  The  Traditional  School  cannot  content  the  claims  of  the 
'  Zeit-Geist '  by  concessions.  Ultimately,  it  must  either  defy  it  or  yield 
to  it  unconditionally.  .  .  . 

"  The  task  of  modern  theology  then  is  to  bring  all  parts  of  the  history 
of  religion  into  organic  connection  with  each  other,  and  with  the  general 
history  of  man,  and  to  find  in  the  human  faculties  themselves,  not  in 
something  extraneous  to  them,  the  foundations  of  religious  faith." — Pp. 
55,  56. 

The  venerable  Dr.  Delitzsch,  from  the  standpoint  of  faith,  recognises 
the  same  irreconcilable  contrast,  and  in  The  Deep  Gulf  between  the  Old 
and  the  Modern  Theology;  a  Confession  (1890),  gives  strong  expression  to 
his  sense  of  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  "  It  is  plain,"  he  says,  "  that  the 
difference  between  old  and  modern  theology  coincides  at  bottom  with  the 
difference  between  the  two  conceptions  of  the  world,  which  are  at  present 
more  harshly  opposed  than  ever  before.  The  modern  view  of  the  world 
declares  the  miracle  to  be  unthinkable,  and  thus  excluded  from  the 
historical  mode  of  treatment ;  for  there  is  only  one  world-system,  that  of 
natural  law,  with  whose  permanence  the  direct,  extraordinary  interferences 
of  God  are  irreconcilable.  ^  .  .  . 

When  the  one  conception  of  the  world  is  thus  presented  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  other,  the  mode  of  statement  unavoidably  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  a  polemic.  The  special  purpose,  however,  with  which  I 
entered  on  my  subject  was  not  polemical.  I  wished  to  exhibit  as 
objectively  as  possible  the  deep  gap  which  divides  the  theologians  of 
to-day,  especially  the  thoughtful  minds  who  have  come  into  contact  with 
philosophy  and  science,  into  two  camps.  An  accommodation  of  this 
antagonism  is  impossible.  We  must  belong  to  the  one  camp  or  the  other. 
We  may,  it  is  true,  inside  the  negative  camp,  tone  down  our  negation  to 
the  very  border  of  affirmation,  and  inside  the  positive  camp  we  may 
weaken  our  affirmation  so  as  almost  to  change  it  to  negation ;  the  re- 
presentation by  individuals  of  the  one  standpoint  or  the  other  leaves 
room  for  a  multitude  of  gradations  and  shades.  But  to  the  fundamental 
question — Is  there  a  supernatural  realm  of  grace,  and  within  it  a 
miraculous  interference  of  God  in  the  world  of  nature,  an  interference 
displaying  itself  most  centrally  and  decisively  in  the  raising  of  the 
Redeemer  from  the  dead?— to  this  fundamental  question,  however  we 
may  seek  to  evade  it,  the  answer  can  only  be  yes  or  no.     The  deep  gulf 

1  Similarly  Max  Miiller  finds  the  kernel  of  the  modern  conception  of  the  world  in 
the  idea  "that  there  is  law  and  order  in  everything,  and  that  an  unbroken  chain  of 
causes  and  effects  holds  the  whole  universe  together  "—a  conception  which  reduces 
the  miraculous  to  mere  seeming.— Anthropological  Religion,  Preface,  p.  10. 


424  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

remains.  It  will  remain  to  the  end  of  time.  No  effort  of  tliouglit  can 
fill  it  lip.  There  is  no  synthesis  to  bridge  this  thesis  and  antithesis. 
Is  ever  shall  we  be  able,  by  means  of  reasons,  evidence,  or  the  witness  of 
history,  to  convince  those  who  reject  this  truth.  But  this  do  we  claim 
for  ourselves,  that  prophets  and  apostles,  and  the  Lord  Himself,  stand 
upon  our  side  ;  this  we  claim,  that  while  the  others  use  the  treasures  of 
God's  word  eclectically,  we  take  our  stand  upon  the  whole  undivided 
truth." — Translation  in  Expositor^  vol.  ix.  (3rd  series),  pp.  50,  53. 

See  also  Hartmann's  Die  Krisis  des  Ghristenthums  in  der  modemen 
Theologie  (1888);  and  his  Selbstzersetzung  des  Ghristenthums  (1888).  "  From 
whatever  side,"  he  declares,  "we  may  consider  the  ground-ideas  of 
Christianity  and  those  of  modern  culture,  everywhere  there  stands  out  an 
irreconcilable  contradiction  of  the  two,  and  it  is  therefore  no  wonder  if 
this  contradiction  comes  to  light  more  or  l«ss  in  all  derivative  questions." 
— Selbstzersetzung  des  Ghristenthums,  p.  30. 


NOTE  R 

INTERNAL   CONFLICTS   OF   THE   "  MODERN  "   VIEW. 

An  internecine  warfare  is  waged  among  the  representatives  of  the 
"modern"  view,  quite  as  embittered  and  irreconcilable  as  that  which 
they  unitedly  wage  against  Christianity.  A  "Kampf  der  Welt- 
anschauungen "  is  going  on  here  also.  Deists,  Pantheists,  Agnostics, 
Pessimists,  Atheists,  Positivists,  and  liberal  theologians,  unceasingly 
refute  each  other  ;  and  were  their  respective  systems  put  to  the  vote,  out 
of  a  dozen  systems,  each  would  be  found  in  a  minority  of  one,  with  the 
other  eleven  against  it.  If  escape  were  sought  in  a  theoretical  scepticism, 
which  despairs  of  truth  altogether,  this  would  but  add  another  sect  to 
the  number,  which  would  encounter  the  hostility  of  all  the  rest. 

Not  without  justice,  therefore,  does  Dr.  Dorner,  after  reviewing  the 
systems,  speak  of  the  attempt  to  set  up  a  rival  view  to  Christianity  as 
ending  in  a  "  screaming  contradiction." — System  of  Ghristian  Doctrine,  i. 
pp.  121,  122  (Eng.  trans.). 

"  The  atheistic  systems  of  Germany,"  says  Lichtenberger,  "  have  raised 
the  standard,  or  rather  the  'red  rag'  of  Kadicalism  and  Nihilism  ;  and 
have  professed  that  their  one  and  only  principle  was  the  very  absence  of 
principles.  The  one  bond  which  unites  them  at  bottom  is  their  hatred 
of  religion  and  of  Christianity." — History  of  German  Tlieology  in  the 
Nineteenth  Gentury,  p.  370  (Eng.  trans.). 

"It  is  not  here  our  business,"  says  Beyschlag,  "philosophically  to 
arrange  matters  between  the  Christian- theistic  '  Weltanschauung '  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  deistic,  or  pantheistic,  or  materialistic,  on  the  other, 
which  latter  have  first  to  fight  out  their  mortal  conflict  with  one  another." 
— Leben  Jesu,  i.  p.  10. 

A  few  examples  in  concreto  will  point  the  moral  better  than  many 
general  statements. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I,  425 

The  columns  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  1884  witnessed  an  interesting 
controversy  between  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  and  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison,  in 
which  some  pretty  hard  words  were  bandied  to  and  fro  between  the  com- 
batants. Mr.  Spencer  had  written  a  paper  ("  Keligious  Retrospect  and 
Prospect,"  January,  1884),  developing  his  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion 
from  ghost- worship,  and  expounding  his  own  substitute  for  decaying 
religious  faith.  To  this  Mr.  Harrison  replied  in  a  vigorous  article  (July 
1884),  ridiculing  Mr.  Spencer's  proposed  substitute  as  "The  Ghost  of 
Religion,"  and  scoffing  at  his  "  Unknowable "  as  "an  ever-present 
conundrum  to  be  everlastingly  given  up."  Extending  his  attack  to 
certain  modern  Theisms,  he  said,  "  The  Neo-Theisms  have  all  the  same 
mortal  weakness  that  the  Unknowable  has.  They  offer  no  kinship, 
sympathy,  or  relation  whatever  between  worshippers  and  worshipped. 
They,  too,  are  logical  formulas  begotten  in  controversy,  dwelling  apart 
from  men  and  the  world."  "  Tacitly  implying,"  retorts  Mr.  Spencer,  in 
a  later  round  of  the  controversy,  "  that  Mr.  Harrison's  religion  supplies 
this  relation"  (November  1884),  which,  as  he  shows  at  great  length,  it 
does  not  ("Retrogressive  Religion,"  July  1884).  Sir  James  Stephen  also 
had  offended  Mr.  Spencer  by  describing  his  "Unknowable"  (June  1884) 
as  "  like  a  gigantic  soap-bubble,  not  burst,  but  blown  thinner  and  thinner 
till  it  has  become  absolutely  imperceptible;"  and  Mr.  Harrison  also 
returns  to  the  attack  ("Agnostic  Metaphysics,"  September  1884). 

In  a  subsequent  controversy,  Mr.  Harrison  fares  as  badly  at  the  hands 
of  Professor  Huxley  as  he  did  at  those  of  Mr.  Spencer.  Replying  to  an 
article  of  his  on  "  The  Future  of  Agnosticism,"  Professor  Huxley  says  :  "'  I 
am  afraid  I  can  say  nothing  which  shall  manifest  my  personal  respect  for 
this  aljle  writer,  and  for  the  zeal  and  energy  with  which  he  ever  and 
anon  galvanises  the  weakly  frame  of  Positivism,  until  it  looks  more  than 
ever  like  John  Bunyan's  Pope  and  Pagan  rolled  into  one.  There  is  a 
story  often  repeated,  and  I  am  afraid  none  the  less  mythical  on  that 
account,  of  a  valiant  and  loud-voiced  corporal,  in  command  of  two  full 
privates,  who,  falling  in  with  a  regiment  of  the  enemy  in  the  dark,  orders 
it  to  surrender  under  pain  of  instant  annihilation  by  his  force  ;  and  the 
enemy  surrenders  accordingly.  I  am  always  reminded  of  this  tale  when 
I  read  the  Positivist  commands  to  the  forces  of  Christianity  and  of 
science  ;  only,  the  enemy  shows  no  more  signs  of  intending  to  obey  now 
than  they  have  done  any  time  these  forty  years."--"  Agnosticism,"  in 
Nineteenth  Century,  February  1889.^ 

Mr.  Samuel  Laing,  author  of  Modern  Science  and  Modern  Thought,  and 
a  multitude  of  other  works,  probably  regards  himself  as  quite  a  typical 
representative  of  the  modern  spirit.  The  "  old  creeds,"  he  informs  us, 
"  must  be  transformed  or  die."  Unfortunately,  not  content  with  assailing 
other  people's  creeds,  he  undertook  the  construction  of  one  of  his  own,^ 

1  Mr.  Harrison  complains  {Fortnightly  Review.  October  1892)  that  Mr.  Huxley, 
in  this  article,  has  held  him  up  "to  public  ridicule  as  pontiff,  prophet,  general 
humbug,  and  counterpart  of  Joe  Smith  the  Mormon,"  and  tries  to  show  how  much 
agreement,  mostly  in  negations,  underlies  their  differences. 

2  "It  appears  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  some  time  ago,  asked  Mr.  Laing  if  he  could 
draw  up  a  short  summary  of  the  negative  creed ;  a  body  of  negative  propositions 


426  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

concerning  which  Professor  Huxley  writes  :  "  I  speak  only  for  myself,  and 
I  do  not  dream  of  anathematising  and  excommunicating  Mr.  Laing.  But 
when  I  consider  his  creed  and  compare  it  with  the  Athanasian,  I  think  I 
have,  on  the  whole,  a  clearer  conception  of  the  meaning  of  the  latter. 
'  Polarity,'  in  Art.  viii.,  for  example,  is  a  word  about  which  I  heard  a 
good  deal  in  my  youth,  when  '  Naturphilosophie '  was  in  fashion,  and 
greatly  did  I  suffer  from  it.  For  many  years  past,  whenever  I  have  met 
with  '  polarity '  anywhere  but  in  a  discussion  of  some  purely  physical 
topic,  such  as  magnetism,  I  have  shut  the  book.  Mr.  Laing  must  excuse 
me  if  the  force  of  habit  was  too  much  for  me  when  I  read  his  eighth 
article." — Nineteenth  Century,  Ibid.     Rather  hard  on  Mr.  Laing  !  ^ 

Mr.  Rathbone  Greg  is  another  writer  who  laboured  hard  to  demolish 
"  the  creed  of  Christendom,"  while  retaining  a  great  personal  reverence 
for  Jesus.  His  concessions  on  this  subject,  however,  did  not  meet  with 
much  favour  on  his  own  side.  Mr.  F.  W.  K ewnian,  in  an  article  on  "  The 
New  Christology,"  in  the  Fortnightly  Revieio  (December  1873),  thus 
speaks  of  his  general  treatment :  "  He  has  tried  and  proved  the  New 
Testament,  and  has  found  it  wanting,  not  only  as  to  historical  truth, 
but  as  to  moral  and  religious  wisdom  ;  yet  he  persists  in  the  effort  of 
hammering  out  of  it  what  shall  be  a  '  guide  of  life.'  In  fact,  he  learns  by 
studying  the  actual  world  of  man  ;  but  in  his  theory  he  is  to  rediscover  a 
fountain  of  wisdom,  by  penetrating  to  some  '  essence '  in  a  book  which  he 
esteems  very  defective  and  erroneous.  This  is  '  to  rebuild  the  things  he 
has  destroyed.'  To  sit  in  judgment  on  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  convict 
Him  of  glaring  errors,  as  a  first  step,  and  then,  as  a  second,  set  Him  on  a 
pedestal  to  glorify  Him  as  the  most  divine  of  men  and  the  sublimest 
of  teachers,  a  perpetual  miracle,  —  is  a  very  lame  and  inconsequent 
proceeding.  .  .  .  Mr.  Greg,  as  perhaps  all  our  Unitarians,  desires  a  purified 
gospel.  Why,  then,  is  not  such  a  thing  published  ?  No  doubt,  because 
it  is  presently  found  that  nearly  every  sentence  has  to  be  either  cut  out 
or  re- written." 

Mr.  Greg  and  Mr.  Newman  are  Theists.  The  latter  even  writes  :  "  The 
claim  of  retaining  a  belief  in  God,  while  rejecting  a  Personal  God,  I  do 
not  know  how  to  treat  with  respect."  Mr.  Fiske  also,  author  of  Cosmic 
Philosophy,  is  in  his  own  way  a  Theist.  But  "  Physicus,"  another  repre- 
sentative of  the  "  modern "  view,  in  his  Candid  Examination  of  Theism, 
can  see  no  evidence  for  the  existence  of  a  God,  and  speaks  thus  of  Mr. 
Fiske's  attempt  to  develop  Theism  out  of  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy :  "  I 
confess  that,  on  first  seeing  his  work,  I  experienced  a  faint  hope  that,  in 
the  higher  departments  of  the  philosophy  of  evolution  as  conceived  by 
Mr.  Spencer,  and  elaborated  by  his  disciple,  there  might  be  found  some 
rational  justification  for  an  attenuated  form  of  Theism.  But  on  examina- 
tion I  find  that  the  bread  which  these  fathers  have  offered  us  turns  out 

which  have  so  far  been  adopted  on  the  negative  side  as  to  be  what  the  Apostles'  and 
other  accepted  creeds  are  on  the  positive  ;  and  Mr.  Laing  at  once  kindly  obliged  Mr. 
Gladstone  with  the  desired  articles— eight  of  them."— Professor  Huxley,  as  above. 

1  Mr.  Laing's  own  book,  Science  and  Modern  Thought,  is  a  good  example  of  how 
these  "modern "  systems  eat  and  devour  one  another.  See  his  criticisms  of  theories 
in  chap,  vii.,  etc. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L  427 

to  be  a  stone.  ...  We  have  but  to  think  of  the  disgust  with  which  the 
vast  majority  of  living  persons  would  regard  the  sense  in  which  Mr. 
Fiske  uses  the  term  'Theism,'  to  perceive  how  intimate  is  the  association 
of  that  term  with  the  idea  of  a  Personal  God.  Such  persons  will  feel 
strongly  that,  by  this  final  act  of  purification,  Mr.  Fiske  has  simply 
purified  the  Deity  altogether  out  of  existence."  —  CandtcZ  Examination, 
essay  on  "Cosmic  Theism,"  pp.  131,  138,  and  throughout. 

Thus  the  strife  goes  on.  Strauss,  in  his  Old  Faith  and  the  New,  refutes 
Pessimism  ;  but  Hartmann,  the  Pessimist,  retorts  on  Straiiss  that  he  has 
"  no  philosophic  head,"  and  shows  the  ridiculousness  of  his  demand  that 
we^  should  love  the  Universe.  "  It  is  a  rather  strong,  or  rather  naive 
claim,  that  we  should  experience  a  sentiment  of  religious  piety  and 
dependence  for  a  '  Universum '  which  is  only  an  aggregate  of  all  material 
substances,  and  which  threatens  every  instant  to  crush  us  between  the 
wheels  and  teeth  of  its  pitiless  mechanism."  —  Selbstzer.  des  Christ.  Pref. 
and  p.  81. 

What  these  thorough-going  representatives  of  the  "modern"  view 
think  of  the  half-way  attitude  of  our  modern  "  liberal  Protestant  theo- 
logians," who  vaunt  so  loudly  their  loyalty  to  the  "modern"  spirit,  may 
be  seen  in  a  note  to  next  Lecture.  It  will  be  apparent  that  all  these 
criticisms  bear  in  the  direction  of  stripping  off  the  disguises  with  which 
the  nakedness  of  the  "  modern "  view  is  wont  to  conceal  itself,  and  of 
reducing  this  view  to  its  ultimate  level  of  Agnosticism,  Atheism,  or 
Pessimism. 

Hartmann  may  as  well  speak  of  the  "  Selbstzersetzung "  and  "  Zer- 
spitterung"  of  unbelief,  as  of  the  disintegration  of  Christianity. 


NOTE  G. 

UNIQUENESS   OF  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT  VIEW. 

It  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  the  drift  of  modern  criticism  and 
research  has  not  been  to  lower,  but  immensely  to  exalt,  our  concej)tious 
of  the  unique  character  of  the  Old  Testament  religion.  The  views  of  the 
critics  of  the  earlier  stages  of  the  religion  of  Israel  are  low  and  poor 
enough,  but,  as  if  in  compensation,  they  exalt  the  "  Ethical  Monotheism  " 
and  spiritual  religion  of  the  prophets  and  psalms,  till  one  feels,  in  reading 
their  works,  that  truly  this  religion  of  Israel  is  something  unexampled 
on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  is  not  to  be  accounted  for  on  purely  natural 
principles.  Schleiermacher  and  Hegel  spoke  disparagingly  of  the  Old 
Testament,  but  this  is  not  the  more  recent  tendency.  The  following  are 
some  testimonies  from  various  standpoints. 

Lotze,  in  his  Microcosmus,  bears  a  noble  testimony  to  the  uniqueness  of 
the  Old  Testament  religion,  and  to  the  sublimity  and  unparalleled 
character  of  its  literature.  "Among  the  theocratically  governed  nations 
of  the  East,"  he  says,  "the  Hebrews  seem  to  us  as  sober  men  among 
drunkards "  (vol.  ii.  p.  267,  Eng.  trans.).     See  his  spirited  sketch  of  the 


428  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L 

Old  Testament  view  (pp.  466-468) ;  and  his  eulogy  of  tlie  literature 
(pp.  402-404). 

Dr.  Hutcheson  Stirling  says :  "  The  sacred  writings  of  the  Hebrews, 
indeed,  are  so  immeasurably  superior  to  those  of  every  other  name  that, 
for  the  sake  of  the  latter,  to  invite  a  comparison  is  to  undergo  instant- 
aneous extinction.  Nay,  regard  these  Scriptures  as  a  literature  only,  the 
literature  of  the  Jews— even  then,  in  the  kind  of  quality,  is  there  any 
literature  to  be  compared  with  it  ?  Will  it  not  even  then  remain  still  the 
sacred  literature?  A  taking  simpleness,  a  simple  takingness,  that  is 
Divine — all  that  can  lift  us  out  of  our  own  week-day  selves  and  place  us, 
j)ure  then,  holy,  rapt,  in  the  joy  and  the  peace  of  Sabbath  feeling  and 
Sabbath  vision,  is  to  be  found  in  the  tnere  nature  of  these  old  idylls,  in 
the  full-filling  sublimity  of  these  psalms,  in  the  inspired  God-words  of 
these  intense-souled  prophets." — Phil,  and  Theol.  (Gilford  Lectures),  pp. 
18,  19. 

Dr.  Eobertson  Smith  has  well  brought  out  the  singularity  and  elevation 
of  the  Hebrew  view  in  contrast  with  that  of  the  other  Semitic  and  Aryan 
nations  in  his  Religion  of  the  Semites  (Burnett  Lectures).  "  The  idea  of 
absolute  and  ever- watchful  Divine  justice,"  he  says,  "as  we  find  it  in  the 
prophets,  is  no  more  natural  to  the  East  than  to  the  West,  for  even  the 
ideal  Semitic  king  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  very  imperfect  earthly  provid- 
ence ;  and,  moreover,  he  has  a  different  standard  of  right  for  his  own 
people  and  for  strangers.  The  prophetic  idea  that  Jehovah  will  vindicate 
the  right,  even  in  the  destruction  of  His  own  people  of  Israel,  involves 
an  ethical  standard  as  foreign  to  Semitic  as  to  Aryan  tradition  "  (p.  74). 

Again :  "  While  in  Greece  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  God  was  a  philo- 
sophical speculation,  without  any  definite  point  of  attachment  to  actual 
religion,  the  Monotheism  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  kept  touch  with  the 
ideas  and  institutions  of  the  Semitic  race  by  conceiving  of  the  one  true 
God  as  the  King  of  absolute  justice,  the  national  God  of  Israel,  who,  at 
the  same  time,  was,  or  rather  was  destined  to  become,  the  God  of  all  the 
earth,  not  merely  because  His  power  was  world-wide,  but  because,  as  the 
perfect  ruler.  He  could  not  fail  to  draw  all  nations  to  do  Him  homage " 
(p.  75). 

Again  :  "  The  Hebrew  ideal  of  a  Divine  Kingship  that  must  one  day 
draw  all  men  to  do  it  homage,  offered  better  things  than  these,  not  in 
virtue  of  any  feature  that  it  possessed  in  common  with  the  Semitic 
religions  as  a  whole,  but  solely  in  virtue  of  its  unique  conception  of 
Jehovah  as  a  God  whose  love  for  His  people  was  conditioned  by  a  law  of 
absolute  righteousness.  In  other  nations,  individual  thinkers  rose  to 
lofty  conceptions  of  a  supreme  Deity,  but  in  Israel,  and  in  Israel  alone, 
these  conceptions  were  incorporated  in  the  conception  of  the  national 
God.  And  so,  of  all  the  gods  of  the  nations,  Jehovah  alone  was  fitted  to 
become  the  God  of  the  whole  earth"  (pp.  80,  81). 

Kuenen  writes  thus  of  the  universalism  of  the  prophets  :  "  What  was 
thus  revealed  to  the  eye  of  their  spirit  was  no  less  than  the  august 
idea  of  the  moral  government  of  the  world — crude  as  yet,  and  with  mani- 
fold admixture  of  error  (?),  but  pure  in  principle.  The  prophets  had  no 
conception  of   the   mutual   connection  of   the  powers  or  operations  of 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I,  429 

nature.  They  never  dreamed  of  carrying  them  back  to  a  single  cause,  or 
deducing  them  from  it.  But  what  they  did  see,  on  the  field  within  their 
view,  was  the  realisation  of  a  single  jolan  —  everything,  not  only  the 
tumult  of  the  peoples,  but  all  nature  likewise,  subservient  to  the  working 
out  of  one  great  purpose.  The  name  '  Ethical  Monotheism '  describes 
better  than  any  other  the  characteristics  of  their  point  of  view,  for  it  not 
only  expresses  tlie  character  of  the  one  God  whom  they  worshipped,  but 

also  indicates   the  fountain  whence  their  faith  in   Him  welled  up.'"' 

Hibbert  Lectures,  pp.  124,  125. 

"  So  far,"  says  Mr.  Gladstone,  "  then,  the  office  and  work  of  the  Old 
Testament,  as  presented  to  us  by  its  own  contents,  is  without  a  compeer 
among  the  old  religions.  It  deals  with  the  case  of  man  as  a  whole.  It 
covers  all  time.  It  is  alike  adapted  to  every  race  and  region  of  the 
earth.  And  how,  according  to  the  purport  of  the  Old  Testament,  may 
that  case  best  be  summed  up  ?  In  these  words  :  it  is  a  history  first  of  sin, 
and  next  of  Redemption." — Impregnable  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture.  See  the 
whole  chapter  on  "The  Office  and  Work  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
Outline." 

I  may  add  a  few  words  of  personal  testimony  from  Professor  Monier 
Williams,  on  the  comparison  of  the  Scriptures  with  the  Sacred  Books  of 
the  East.  "  When  I  began  investigating  Hinduism  and  Buddhism,  I 
found  many  beautiful  gems  ;  nay,  I  met  with  bright  coruscations  of  true 
light  flashing  here  and  there  amid  the  surrounding  darkness.  As  I  pro- 
secuted my  researches  into  these  non  -  Christian  systems,  I  began  to 
foster  a  fancy  that  they  had  been  unjustly  treated.  I  began  to  observe 
and  trace  out  curious  coincidences  and  comparisons  with  our  own  Sacred 
Book  of  the  East.  I  began,  in  short,  to  be  a  believer  in  what  is  called  the 
evolution  and  growth  of  religious  thought.  '  These  imperfect  systems,' 
1  said  to  myself,  '  are  interesting  efforts  of  the  human  mind  struggling 
upwards  towards  Christianity.  Nay,  it  is  probable  that  they  were  all 
intended  to  lead  up  to  the  one  true  religion,  and  that  Christianity  is, 
after  all,  merely  the  climax,  the  complement,  the  fulfilment  of  them 
all' 

"  Now  there  is  unquestionably  a  delightful  fascination  about  such  a 
theory,  and,  what  is  more,  there  are  really  elements  of  truth  in  it.  But 
I  am  glad  of  this  opportunity  of  stating  publicly  that  I  am  persuaded  I 
was  misled  by  its  attractiveness,  and  that  its  main  idea  is  quite  erroneous. 
.  .  .  We  welcome  these  books.  We  ask  every  missionary  to  study  their 
contents,  and  thankfully  lay  hold  of  whatsoever  things  are  true  and  of 
good  report  in  them.  Bat  we  warn  him  that  there  can  be  no  greater  mis- 
take than  to  force  these  non-Christian  bibles  into  conformity  with  some 
scientific  theory  of  development,  and  then  point  to  the  Christian's  Holy 
Bible  as  the  crowning  product  of  religious  evolution.  So  far  from  this, 
these  non-Christian  bibles  are  all  developments  in  the  wrong  direction. 
They  all  begin  with  some  flashes  of  true  light,  and  end  in  utter  dark- 
ness. Pile  them,  if  you  will,  on  the  left  side  of  your  study  table,  but 
place  your  own  Holy  Bible  on  the  right  side — all  by  itself,  all  alone — and 
with  a  wide  gap  between."— Quoted  l^y  Joseph  Cook  in  God  in  the  Bible 
(Boston  Lectures),  p.  16. 


430  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L 

NOTE  H. 

ORIGIN  OP   THE  OLD   TESTA.MEXT   VIEW — RELATION   TO  CRITICAL   THEORIES. 

Many  feel  that  from  the  peculiarity  of  Israel's  religion  referred  to  in  last 
note,  the  need  will  arise  sooner  or  later  for  recasting  the  whole  critical 
view  of  the  development.  The  more  rich  and  wonderful  the  religious 
development  of  the  age  of  the  prophets  is  shown  to  be,  the  more  will  it  be 
felt  necessary  to  postulate  something  in  the  earlier  stages  to  account  for 
this  development  —  the  more  natural  and  life-like  will  Israel's  own 
account  of  its  history  appear  ^ — the  more  impossible  will  it  be  found  to 
explain  the  presence  of  such  a  development  or  religion  at  all  apart  from 
the  fact  of  supernatural  Kevelation. 

As  it  is,  there  is  a  growing  acknowledgment  among  the  critics  of  the 
most  advanced  school  that,  date  the  books  when  we  may,  the  religion  can 
only  be  explained  by  Eevelation.     I  quote  from  three  recent  works. 

H.  Schultz,  in  his  new  edition  of  his  Alttestamentliche  Theologie,  1889, 
thus  writes  :  "  The  Old  Testament  religion  is  thus  only  to  be  explained 
out  of  Revelation  ;  that  is  to  say,  out  of  the  fact  that  God  raised  up  to 
this  people  men,  in  whose  original  religious  and  moral  endowment, 
developed  through  the  leadings  of  their  inner  and  outer  life,  the  recep- 
tivity was  given  for  an  absolutely  original  comprehension  of  the  self- 
communicating,  redeeming  will  of  God  towards  men,  the  religious  truth 
which  makes  free — not  as  a  result  of  human  wisdom  or  intellectual 
effort,  but  as  an  irresistible,  constraining  power  on  the  soul  itself. 
Only  he  who  explicitly  recognises  this  can  do  historical  justice  to  the 
Old  Testament"  (p.  50). 

R.  Kittel,  in  his  recent  valuable  Geschichte  der  Hebriier,  1888-92,  also 
based,  though  discriminatingly,  on  the  results  of  the  later  criticism,  thus 
sums  up  on  the  question — "  Whence  did  Moses  derive  his  knowledge  of 
God  1"  "  The  historian  stands  here,"  he  says,  "before  a  mystery,  which  is 
almost  unique  in  history.  A  solution  is  only  to  be  found  if  in  that  gap 
a  factor  is  inserted,  the  legitimacy  of  which  can  no  more  be  proved  by 
strict  historical  methods.  There  are  points  in  the  life  of  humanity 
where  history  goes  over  into  the  philosophy  of  history,  and  speculation 
must  illuminate  with  its  retrospective  and  interpreting  light  the  other- 
wise permanently  dark  course  of  the  historical  process.  Such  a  case  is 
here.  Only  an  immediate  contact  of  God  Himself  with  man  can  produce 
the  true  knowledge  of  God,  or  bring  man  a  real  stage  nearer  to  it.  For 
in  himself  man  finds  only  the  world,  and  his  own  proper  ego.  Neither 
one  nor  the  other  yields  more  than  heathenism  :  the  former  a  lower,  the 
latter  a  higher  form  of  it.  Does  the  thought  flash  on  Moses  that  God  is 
neither  the  world  nor  the  idealised  image  of  man,  but  that  He  is  the 
Lord  of  Life,  of  moral  commands,  exalted  above  multiplicity  and  the 
world  of  sense,  and  the  Creator,  who  does  not  crush  man,  but  ennobles 

1  Cf.  Robertson's  Early  Religion  of  Israel  (Baird  Lectures).  An  alile  criticism  of 
some  of  Professor  R.  Smith's  positions  in  The  Religion  of  the  Semites  appeared  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  April  1892. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  431 

him ;  so  lias  lie  this  knowledge,  not  out  of  his  time,  and  not  out  of  him- 
self—he has  it  out  of  an  immediate  Revelation  of  this  God  in  his  heart." 

Geschichte,  i.  pp.  227,  228. 

Alex.  Westphal,  author  of  an  able  French  work,  Les  Sources  du 
Pentateicque,  Etude  de  Critique  et  d'Histoire,  1888-92,  is  another  writer  who 
uncompromisingly  accepts  the  results  of  the  advanced  critical  school.  But 
he  earnestly  repudiates,  in  the  Preface  to  the  above  work,  the  idea  that 
these  results  destroy,  and  do  not  rather  confirm,  faith  in  Revelation,  and 
even  builds  on  them  an  argument  for  the  historic  truthfulness  of  the 
early  tradition.  He  separates  himself  in  this  respect  from  the  unbeliev- 
ing position.  "  Truth  to  tell,"  he  says,  "  the  unanimity  of  scholars  exists 
only  in  relation  to  one  of  the  solutions  demanded,  that  of  the  literary 
problem.  .  .  .  The  position  which  the  scholar  takes  up  towards  the 
Ijooks  which  he  studies,  and  his  personal  views  on  the  history  and  the 
religious  development  of  Israel,  always  exercise,  whether  he  wishes  it  or 
not,  a  considerable  influence  on  the  results  of  his  work.  However,  we 
may  be  permitted  to  affirm,  and  hope  one  day  to  be  able  to  prove,  that 
the  reply  to  the  historic  question  belongs  to  evangelical  criticism,  which, 
illuminated  by  the  spirit  of  Revelation,  alone  possesses  all  the  factors  for 
the  solution  of  this  grave  problem.  .  .  .  Far  from  being  dismayed  by  the 
fact  that  the  plurality  of  sources  involves  profound  modifications  in  our 
traditional  notion  of  the  Pentateuch  written  by  Moses,  we  should  rather 
see  in  it  a  providential  intervention,  at  the  moment  when  it  is  most 
necessary,  a  decisive  argument  in  favour  of  the  primitive  history."  ^ — Les 
Sources,  i.  Preface,  p.  28. 


NOTE  I. 

NATURE   AND   DEFINITION   OF   RELIGION. 

In  strictness  these  Lectures  ought  to  have  included  a  treatment  of  the 
general  question  of  religion  as  preparatory  to  the  consideration  of  the 
specific  Christian  view.  Christianity  involves  a  "  Weltanschauung,"  and 
it  belongs  to  the  type  "  religious."  It  ought  therefore  to  be  shown  in 
what  distinctively  a  religious  "  Weltanschauung  "  consists,  and  how  the 
Christian  view  is  related  to  the  general  conception.     This,  again,  would 

1  This  somewhat  novel  position  is  expounded  further  on.  "What  is  then  the 
result  of  these  bold  labours  at  which  the  Church  is  so  alarmed,  and  on  which  un- 
lielief  congratulates  itself?  The  putting  of  three  books  in  place  of  one  book,  a 
series  of  witnesses  in  place  of  a  single  witness.  .  .  .  Shall  we  regard  these  as 
variations  of  one  and  the  same  popular  legend  ?  Impossible  ;  their  divergences  are 
too  numerous,  their  character  too  distinct.  A  fable  become  legendary,  and  appear- 
ing on  the  domain  of  history  under  the  form  of  a  triple  tradition — that  appears  to  us 
difficult  to  comprehend.  But  that  an  historic  fact,  transmitted  from  age  to  age  by 
an  oral  tradition,  should  become  little  by  little  the  epic  of  generations,  and  bear 
till  the  day  of  its  redaction  the  strong  impress  of  the  genius  of  the  tribes  Avhich 
liave  preserved  it,  and  the  stamp  of  the  time  which  has  fixed  it  in  writing — nothing 
is  more  natural.     Facts  of  this  kind  abound  in  the  annals  of  history  "  (p.  29). 


432  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L 

involve  an  inquiry  into  the  general  nature  of  religion  ;  in  order,  on  this 
basis,  to  show  how  a  "  Weltanschauung "  necessarily  originates  from  it. 
A  few  notes  are  all  that  can  be  attempted  here,  in  addition  to  what  is 
said  in  Appendix  II.,  and  in  the  text  of  various  portions  of  the 
Lectures. 

The  main  question  is  as  to  the  general  character,  or  essential  nature,  of 
religion,  as  a  means  of  understanding  how  a  "  Weltanschauung  "  springs 
from  it.     This  question  is  not  answered — 

1.  By  an  abstract  definition  of  religion.  Much  has  been  written  on  the 
definition  of  religion.^  A  prior  question  is,  in  what  sense  do  we  speak 
of  definition  %  Do  we  mean  to  include  in  our  definition  of  religion  only 
the  common  elements  in  all  religions  ;  or  do  we  propose  to  define  by  the 
idea  of  religion,  as  that  may  be  deduced  from  the  study  of  the  laws  of 
man's  nature,  seen  in  their  manifestation  on  the  field  of  history,  and 
most  conspicuously  in  the  higher  religions  ?  Tlie  fault  of  most  definitions 
is  that,  aiming  at  a  generality  wide  enough  to  embrace  the  most  diverse 
manifestations  of  the  religious  consciousness,  —  the  lowest  and  most 
debased  equally  with  the  most  complex  and  exalted, — they  necessarily 
leave  out  all  that  is  purest  and  most  spiritual  in  religion — that  which 
expresses  its  truest  essence.  They  give  us,  in  short,  a  logical  summum 
genus,  which  may  be  useful  enough  for  some  purposes,  but  is  utterly 
barren  and  unprofitable  as  a  key  to  the  interpretation  of  any  spiritual  fact. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  we  take  as  our  guide  the  idea  of  religion,  we  may 
be  accused  of  finding  only  one  religion  which  corresponds  to  it — the 
Christian  ;  and  in  any  case  the  definition  will  leave  outside  of  it  a  vast 
variety  of  religious  phenomena.  What  is  wanted  is  not  a  logical  defini- 
tion, which  will  apply  to  nothing  from  which  its  marks  are  absent,  but 
such  a  comprehension  of  the  inner  principle  and  essential  character  of 
religion  as  will  enable  us  to  discern  its  presence  under  forms  that  very 
rudely  and  imperfectly  express  it.^ 

2.  By  exclusively  'psychological  or  historical  methods  in  the  treatment 
of  religion.  These  are  the  methods  in  vogue  at  the  present  day  in  what 
is  designated  "  The  Science  of  Eeligions."  I  call  a  theory  psychological 
which  seeks  to  account  for  the  ideas  and  beliefs  which  men  entertain 
regarding  their  deities  by  tracing  them  to  psychological  causes,  without 
raising  the  question  of  how  far  these  ideas  and  beliefs  have  any  objective 
truth.  Psychology  deals  with  the  empirical — the  given.  It  observes 
the  facts  of  the  religious  consciousness — groups  and  classifies  them — 
seeks  to  resolve  the  complex  into  the  simple,  the  compound  into  the 
elementary — notes  the  laws  and  relations  which  discover  themselves  in 
the  different  phenomena,  etc.  In  doing  this,  it  performs  a  necessary 
service,  but  its  method  is  liable  to  certain  obvious  drawbacks. 

1  For  a  summary  view  of  these  definitions,  and  examination  of  them,  see  Max 
Miiller's  Gitford  Lectures  on  Natural  Religion  (1888),  and  Nitzsch's  Evangelische 
Dogmatik,  i.  pp.  46-109  (1889). 

2  See  a  good  treatment  of  this  subject  in  Kaftan's  Das  Wesen  der  christ.  Rel. 
(1881),  pp.  1-5  ;  cf.  also  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Religion  (pp.  314-317),  and  Note  "On 
the  possibility  of  discovering  in  the  '  essence  of  religion '  a  universal  religion,"  in 
Conder's  Basis  of  Faith,  p.  438. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  433 

(1)  If  religion  is  a  necessity  of  human  nature,  springing  by  an  inner 
necessity  from  the  rational  and  spiritual  nature  of  man,  this  method 
can  never  show  it.  Psychology  can  only  show  what  is,  not  what  must 
or  should  be.  Its  function  is  ended  when  it  has  described  and  analysed 
facts  as  they  are.  It  does  not  reach  inner  necessity.  From  the  per- 
sistency with  which  religion  appears  and  maintains  itself  in  human 
nature,  it  may  infer  that  there  is  some  deep  and  necessary  ground  for  it 
in  the  spirit  of  man,  but  it  lies  beyond  the  scope  of  its  methods  to  show 
what  that  is.     Its  line  is  too  short  to  reach  down  to  these  depths. 

(2)  It  is  a  temptation  in  these  theories  to  aim  at  an  undue  simplicity. 
This  is  a  fault,  indeed,  of  most  theories  of  religion,  that  they  do  not  do 
justice  to  the  multiplicity  of  factors  involved  in  religion,  but,  laying 
hold  on  one  of  these  factors,  exalt  it  to  exclusive  importance  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest.  Keligion  is  a  highly  complex  thing,  blending  in  V 
itself  a  multitude  of  elements  readily  distinguishable, — hopes  and  fears, 
belief  in  the  invisible,  the  feeling  of  dependence,  the  sense  of  moral 
relation,  desire  for  fellowship,  emotions  of  awe,  love,  reverence,  surrender 
of  the  will,  etc., — and  I  suppose  no  definition  of  it  has  ever  been  con- 
structed which  did  not  leave  out  some  of  its  extraordinarily  varied  mani-  ^ 
festations.  Theories,  therefore,  err  which  attempt  to  deduce  all  religious 
sentiments  and  ideas  from  some  one  principle,  e.fj.^  Hume,  from  man's 
hopes  and  fears  ;  Tylor,  from  the  animistic  tendency  in  human  nature  ; 
Spencer,  from  ghost  worship  ;  Feuerbach,  from  man's  egoistic  wishes — 

"  What  man  would  have  liked  to  be,  but  was  not,  he  made  his  god  ;  what 
he  would  like  to  have,  but  could  not  get  for  himself,  his  god  was  to  get 
for  him"  (Strauss);  others  from  Totemism,  etc.^ 

(3)  It  is  a  common  error  of  these  theories  to  study  religion  chiefly  as  it 
presents  itself  in  the  lowest,  poorest,  crudest  manifestations  of  the 
religious  consciousness  ;  and  to  suppose  that  if  they  can  explain  these, 
all  the  higher  stages  of  religious  development  can  be  explained  in  the 
same  way.  This  is  much  the  same  as  if  a  botanist,  wishing  to  exhibit 
the  essential  characteristics  of  plant  life,  were  to  confine  his  attention  to 
the  lowest  order  of  plants,  and  even  to  the  most  dwarfed,  stunted,  and 
imf)Overislied  specimens  of  these. 

(4)  It  is  a  further  weakness  of  psychological  theories  that  they  move  ^ 
solely  in  the  region  of  the  subjective.  They  occupy  themselves  with 
psychological  causes,  and  with  the  ideas  and  fancies  to  which  these  give 
rise  ;  but  have  nothing  to  teach  us  of  the  object  of  religion — neither  what 
the  true  object  is,  nor  whether  a  true  object  is  to  be  known  at  all.  Their 
function  is  ended  when  they  have  described  and  analysed  facts  ;  they 
claim  no  right  to  pass  judgment.  They  have,  in  other  words,  no  objective 
standard  of  judgment.  Yet  the  question  of  the  object  is  the  one  of 
essential  importance  in  religion,  as  determining  whether  it  has  any 
ground  in  objective  truth,  or  is  only,  as  Feuerbach  would  have  it,  a 
deceptive  play  of  the  human  consciousness  with  itself.  ^  / 

(5)  Finally,  even  the  higher  class  of  psychological  theories  form  a  very 
inadequate  basis  for  a  true  conception  of  religion.     Schleiermacher,  e.gf., 

1  Cf.  on  some  of  these  theories  Note  A  to  Lecture  III. 

2  Cf.  Max  Miiller,  Natural  Religion,  p.  56. 

28 


434  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

explains  religion  as  the  immediate  consciousness  of  the  infinite  in  the 
finite,  and  of  the  eternal  in  the  temporal ;  Max  Miiller  as  the  perception 
of  the  infinite/  etc.  But  if  we  ask  in  Kantian  fashion — How  is  such  an 
immediate  consciousness — feeling  or  perception— possible  ?  What  view 
of  man's  nature  is  implied  in  his  capacity  to  have  a  consciousness,  or 
feeling,  or  perception  of  the  infinite  ?  we  are  driven  back  on  deeper 
ground,  and  come  in  view  of  a  rational  nature  in  man  which  transforms 
the  whole  problem. ^ 

/  The  same  criticisms  apply  in  part  to  the  Mstorical  treatment  of  religion. 
This,  like  the  psychological,  has  its  own  part  to  play  in  the  construction 
of  a  philosophy  of  religion ;  its  help,  indeed,  is  of  untold  value.  By  its 
aid  we  see  not  only  what  religion  is  in  its  actual  manifestations  ;  not 
only  get  an  abundance  of  facts  to  check  narrow  and  hasty  generalisations  ; 
but  we  find  a  grand  demonstration  of  the  universality  of  religion.  Yet 
the  historical  treatment,  again,  like  the  psychological,  does  not  furnish  us 
with  more  than  the  materials  from  which  to  construct  a  theory  of  religion. 
If  the  historical  student,  in  addition  to  recording  and  classifying  his  facts, 
and  observing  their  laws,  passes  judgment  on  them  as  true  or  false,  good 
or  evil,  his  inquiry  is  no  longer  historical  merely,  but  has  become  theo- 

^  logical  or  philosophical. 

i3.  Our  question  is  not  answered  by  explaining  religion  out  of  the 
necessity  which  man  feels  of  maintaining  his  2}erso7iality  and  spiritual 
independence  against  the  limitations  of  nature.  This,  as  shown  in 
Appendix  II.,  is  the  Ritschlian  position,  and  the  passages  there  quoted 
illustrate  how  Ritschl  and  his  followers  develop  a  "  Weltanschauung " 

(from  it.  Its  value  lies  in  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that  religion  contains 
not  only  a  relation  of  dependence,  but  a  practical  impulse  towards  freedom ; 
and  in  this  sense  the  Ritschlian  mode  of  representation  has  extended  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  school.  Thus  Pfleiderer  (otherwise  a  sharp 
critic  of  Ritschl)  says  :  "  There  belongs  to  the  religious  consciousness 
some  degree  of  will,  some  free  self-determination.  And  what  this  aims  at 
is  simply  to  be  made  quite  free  from  the  obstructing  limit  and  dependence 
which  our  freedom  encounters  in  the  world"  {Religionsphilosophie,  i.  p. 
.  323,  Eng.  trans.).  "In  the  religious  'Weltanschauung,'"  says  Lipsius, 
"  there  is  always  posited  on  the  part  of  man  the  striving  to  place  himself 
in  a  practical  relation  to  this  higher  power  on  which  he  knows  himself 
and  his  world  to  be  dependent,  in  order  that  through  this  he  may  further 
his  well-being  against  the  restrictions  of  the  outer  world,  and  victoriously 
maintain  his  self-consciousness  as  a  spiritual  being  against  the  finite 
limitations  of  his  natural  existence "  {Dogmatik,  p.  25).  Reville  says  : 
"  Religion  springs  from  the  feeling  that  man  is  in  such  a  relation  to  this 
spirit,  tliat  for  his  well-being,  and  in  order  to  gratify  a  spontaneous 
impulse  of  his  nature,  he  ought  to  maintain  with  it  such  relations  as  will 
afford  him  guarantees  against  the  unknown  of  destiny"  {History  of 
Religions,  p.  29,  Eng.  trans.).^     In  its  Ritschlian  form,  this  theory  is  open 

1  Cf.  Natural  Religion,  pp.  48,  188. 

2  See  Appendix  to  Lecture  III. 

s  Kaftan,  on  the  other  hand,  finds  the  root-motive  of  religion  in  the  infinity  of  the 
'claim  on  life"  inseparable  from  our  nature,  which  this  world  is  not  able  to  satisfy. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  435 

to  very  serious  objections.  Professing  to  account  for  religion,  it  really 
inverts  the  right  relation  between  God  and  the  world,  making  the  soul's 
relation  to  the  world  the  first  thing,  and  the  relation  to  God  secondary 
and  dependent ;  instead  of  seeking  in  an  immediate  relation  to  God  the 
first  and  unique  fact  which  sustains  all  others.^  While,  further,  it  may 
be  conceded  to  Eitschl  and  his  followers,  that  the  primary  motive  in 
religion  is  practical  (though  not  prior  to  the  immediate  impression  or 
consciousness  of  the  Divine  in  nature,  in  the  sense  of  dependence,  in 
conscience,  etc.),  it  must  be  insisted  on  that  the  practical  motive  is  such  | 
as  can  originate  only  in  beings  with  a  rational  nature,— i.e.,  reason  under-  I 
lies  it.  Had  this  been  kept  in  view,  it  would  have  helped  to  prevent  the 
strong  division  which  this  school  makes  between  religious  and  theoretic 
knowledge  (see  later  note). 

4.  The  rational  self-consciousness  of  man  being  posited  as  the  ground-  ' 
work,^  we  may  with  confidence  recognise  the   following  as   elements 
entering  into  the  essence  of  religion,  and  connecting  themselves  with  its 
development. 

(1)  There  is  first  the  sense  of  al)Solute  dependence,  so  justly  emphasised  \ 
by   Sclileierraacher  {Der  christ.  Glaube,  sect.  4).     But  this  alone  is  not  • 
sufficient  to  constitute  religion.      Everything  depends  on  the  kind  of 
power  on  which  we  feel  ourselves  dependent.     Absolute  dependence,  e.g., 
on  a  blind  power,  or  on  an  inevitable  fate  or  destiny,  would  not  produce 
in  us  the  effects  we  commonly  ascribe  to  religion.     With  the  sense  of 
dependence  there  goes  an  impulse  to  freedom.     The  aim  of  religion,  it  I 
has  been  justly  said,  is  to  transform  the  relation  of  dei:>endence  into  one   ) 
of  freedom.     This  involves,  of  course,  the  shaping  of  the  idea  of  the 
Godhead  into  that  of  personal  spirit.  I 

(2)  Equally  original  with  the  feeling  of  dependence,  accordingly,  is  the  \ 
impulse  in  religion  to  go  out  of  oneself  in  surrender  to  a  higher  object — 
the  impulse  to  worship.  The  idea  of  this  higher  object  may  be  at  first  ' 
dim  and  indistinct,  but  the  mind  instinctively  seeks  such  an  object,  and 
cannot  rest  till  it  finds  one  adequate  to  its  own  nature.  Here,  again,  the 
rational  nature  of  man  is  seen  at  w^ork,  impelling  him  to  seek  the  true 
infinite,  and  allowing  him  no  rest  till  such  an  object  is  found  (cf. 
Appendix  to  Lecture  II I. ).^ 

(3)  Another  directly  religious  impulse  is  the  desire  that  is  early 
manifested  to  bring  life,  and  the  circle  of  interests  connected  with  it, 

*'  Generally  the  claim  on  life  (Anspruch  auf  Leben)  lies  at  the  foundation  of  religion. 
That  this  claim  is  not  satisfied  in  tlie  world,  and  further  through  the  world,  is  the 
common  motive  of  all  religions"  (Das  Wesen,  p.  67,  cf.  60).  But  whence  this 
"claim  on  life"  ?  Why  this  striving  after  an  infinite  and  "iiberweltlichen"  good  ? 
What  view  of  man's  nature  is  implied  in  the  possibility  of  such  strivings  ?  These 
are  questions  which  Kaftan  does  not  answer,  but  which  a  true  theory  of  religion 
should  answer. 

1  See  criticism  of  this  theory  of  religion  in  Pfleiderer's  Die  RitschVsche  Theologie,  p. 
17  fF.,  and  in  Stahlin's  Kant,  Lotze,  und  Ritschl,  pp.  238-250  (Eug.  trans.) ;  and  A. 
Arnold's  Das  menschliche  Erkennen,  p.  221. 

-  See  further,  Appendix  to  Lecture  III. 

3  Man's  actual  knowledge  of  the  Divine  is  drawn  from,  or  based  on,  experiences  of 
its  presence  and  workings  (Lecture  III.). 


436  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

under  the  immediate  care  and  sanction  of  the  Divine.  This,  which  has 
its  origin  in  the  sense  of  weakness  and  finitude,  is  apparent  in  all  religions, 
and  brings  religion  within  the  circle  of  men's  hopes  and  fears. 

(4)  As  moral  ideas  advance,— and  we  do  not  here  discuss  how  this 
advance  is  possible, — the  ground  is  prepared  for  yet  higher  ideas  of  God, 
and  of  His  relations  to  the  world  and  man.  There  has  now  entered  the 
idea  of  a  moral  end  ;  man  also  has  become  aware  of  the  contradictions 
which  beset  his  existence  as  a  being  at  once  free,  and  yet  hemmed  in  and 
limited  on  every  side  in  the  attainment  of  his  ends  ;  not  to  speak  of  the 
deeper  contradictions  (within  and  without)  which  beset  his  existence 
through  sin.  It  is  here  that  the  idea  of  religion  links  itself  with  the 
moral  "  Weltanschauung "  of  Ritschl,  Lipsius,  Pfleiderer,  and  others,  who 
find  the  solution  of  these  antinomies  in  the  idea  of  a  teleological  govern- 
ment of  the  world,  in  which  natural  ends  are  everywhere  subordinated  to 
moral ;  which,  again,  implies  the  monotheistic  idea  of  God,  and  faith  in 
His  moral  government,  and  out  of  which  springs  the  idea  of  a  "  kingdom 
of  God  "  as  the  end  of  the  Divine  conduct  of  history. 

It  does  not  follow,  because  this  conception,  or  rather  that  of  the 
Father-God  of  Christ,  is  the  only  one  capable  of  satisfying  man's  religious 
or  moral  aspirations,  that  therefore  man  has  been  able  to  produce  it  from 
his  own  resources.  Even  if  he  were  able,  this  alone  would  not  satisfy  the 
religious  necessity.  For  religion  craves  not  merely  for  the  idea  of  God,  but 
for  personal  fellowship  and  communion  with  Him,  and  this  can  only  take 
•  place  on  the  ground  that  God  and  man  are  in  some  way  brought  together — 
in  other  words,  on  the  basis  of  Divine  Revelation  or  manifestation. 

5.  We  may  perhaps  test  the  statements  now  made,  by  applying  them  to 
two  cases  which  seem  at  first  sight  to  contradict  them,  viz..  Buddhism, 
and  the  Comtist  "  Religion  of  Humanity  "  ;  for  in  neither  of  these  systems 
have  we  the  recognition  of  a  God.  Are  they,  then,  jDroperly  to  be 
accounted  religions  % 

(1)  Buddhism  is  a  religion,  but  it  is  not  so  in  virtue  of  its  negation  of 
the  Divine,  but  in  virtue  of  the  provision  it  still  makes  for  the  religious 
nature  of  man.  Buddhism,  as  it  exists  to-day,  is  anything  but  a  system 
of  Atheism  or  Agnosticism  ;  it  is  a  positive  faith,  with  abundance  of  super- 
natural elements.  It  may  have  begun  with  simple  reverence  for  Buddha, 
— itself  a  substitute  for  worship, — but  the  unstilled  cravings  of  the  heart 
for  worship  soon  demanded  more.  Invention  rushed  in  to  fill  the  vacuum 
in  the  original  creed,  and  the  heavens  which  Buddha  had  left  tenantless 
were  repeopled  with  gods,  saints,  prospective  Buddhas,  and  still  higher 
imperishable  essences,  ending  in  the  practical  deification  of  Buddha  him- 
self. Buddhism  has  all  the  paraphernalia  of  a  religion, — priests,  temples, 
images,  worship,  etc.^ 

(2)  In  like  manner,  Comte's  system  has  a  cult,  in  which  the  sentiments 
and  affections  which  naturally  seek  their  outlet  in  the  direction  of  the 
Divine  are  artificially  directed  to  a  new  object,  collective  humanity, 

1  On  Buddhism,  see  Monier  Williams'  "Duff  Lectures"  (1889);  and  on  its  relation 
to  religion,  Carpenter's  Permanent  Elements  of  Religion  (1889),  Lecture  III. ; 
Gender's  Basis  of  Faith,  Note  I ;  Hartmaun's  Religionsphilosophie,  ii,  p.  5 ; 
Kaftan's  Das  Wesen,  p.  41,  etc. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  437 

which  man  is  bid  adore  as  the  "  Grand  fitre,"  along  with  space  as  the 
"Grand  Milieu,"  and  the  earth  as  the  "Grand  Fetiche"  !  There  is  the 
smell  of  the  lamp  in  all  this,  which  betrays  too  obviously  the  character  of 
Comtism  as  an  artificial  or  "  manufactured  "  religion  ;  but  if  it  receives 
this  name,  it  is  because  there  is  an  application  of  Divine  attributes  to 
objects  which,  however  unworthy  of  having  Divine  honours  paid  to  them, 
are  still  worshipped  as  substitutes  for  God,  and  so  form  an  inverted 
testimony  to  the  need  which  the  soul  feels  for  God.^ 


NOTE  J. 

UNDOGMATIC   RELIGION. 


The  type  of  view  described  in  the  text  is  too  common  to  need  further 
characterisation.     I  add  a  few  illustrations  of  it  from  recent  literature. 

"  The  vital  essence  of  faith,"  says  Mr.  Picton,  "  though,  like  every  mental 
and  moral  affection,  impossible  of  realisation  in  abstract  simplicity,  lies 
not  in  any  form  of  opinion  which  may  clothe  it,  but  in  the  energy  of  a 
voluntary  devotion  to  the  best  ideal  known.  .  .  .  No  definition  of  religion 
can  be  satisfactory  unless  it  surrenders  all  distinction  between  essential 
and  non-essential  dogmas ;  unless,  in  fact,  it  is  capable  of  embracing 
within  its  scope  every  conceivable  opinion  that  can  by  any  possibility  be 
conscientiously  held."— M^s^er?/  of  Matter,  pp.  159,  213. 

"  To  leave  the  religious  idea  in  its  more  complete  indeterminateness," 
says  Kenan,  "  to  hold  at  the  same  time  to  these  two  propositions : — (1) 
'  Religion  will  be  eternal  in  humanity  ; '  (2)  '  All  religious  symbols  are 
assailable  and  perishable  ; '  such,  then,  will  be,  if  the  opinion  of  the  wise 
could  be  that  of  the  majority,  the  true  theology  of  our  time.  All  those 
who  labour  to  show,  beyond  the  symbols,  the  pure  sentiment  which 
constitutes  the  soul  of  them,  labour  for  the  future.  To  what  in  fact  will 
you  attach  religion,  if  this  immortal  basis  does  not  suffice  you?" — 
Fragments  philosophiques,  p.  392. 

Eeville  says  :  "  If  religions  are  mortal,  religion  never  dies,  or  we  may 
say,  it  dies  under  one  form  only  to  come  to  life  again  under  another. 
There  is  then  underneath  and  within  this  multicoloured  development  a 
permanent  and  substantial  element,  something  stable  and  imperishable, 
which  takes  a  firm  hold  on  human  nature  itself." — History  of  Religions^ 
p.  3  (Eng.  trans.). 

M.  Eeville  is  a  distinguished  member  of  the  Liberal  Protestant  party  in 
France,  whose  programme  was  summed  up  thus  in  their  organ,  VEmanci- 
jjation:  "  A  Church  without  a  priesthood  ;  a  religion  without  a  catechism  ; 
a  morality  without  dogmatics  ;  a  God  without  an  obligatory  system." 

1  On  Comtism  as  a  religion,  see  Caird's  Social  Philosophy  of  Comte  (pp.  47-55  ; 
and  Chapter  IV.);  Carpenter's  Permanent  Elonents,  Introduction,  25,  49  ;  Conder's 
Basis  of  Faith,  Lecture  I.;  Spencer's  ''Retrogressive  Religion"  in  Nineteenth 
Century,  July  1884.  On  modern  substitutes  for  Christianity  generally,  see  an  excellent 
treatment  in  Bruee's  Miraculous  Elements  in  the  Gosjyels,  Lecture  X. 


438  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L      • 

Frequently  this  view  is  propounded  in  the  name  of  science,  as  "by 
Professor  Tyndall  in  his  Belfast  address  :~"  You,  who  have  escaped  from 
these  religions  into  the  high-and-dry  light  of  the  understanding  may 
deride  them  ;  but  in  so  doing  you  deride  accidents  of  form  merely,  and 
fail  to  touch  the  immovable  basis  of  the  religious  sentiment  in  the 
emotional  nature  of  man.  To  yield  this  sentiment  reasonable  satisfaction 
is  the  problem  of  problems  at  the  present  hour.  And  grotesque  in 
relation  to  scientific  culture  as  many  of  the  religions  of  the  world  have 
been  and  are — dangerous,  nay,  destructive  to  the  dearest  privileges  of 
freemen  as  some  of  them  undoubtedly  have  been,  and  would,  if  they 
could,  be  again — it  will  be  wise  to  recognise  them  as  the  forms  of  a  force, 
mischievous,  if  permitted  to  intrude  on  the  region  of  hiowledge^  over 
which  it  holds  no  command,  but  capable  of  adding,  in  the  region  of 
jpoetry  and  emotion^  inward  completeness  and  dignity  to  man." — Fragments 
of  Science,  ii.  198. 

The  theory  is  sometimes  advocated  in  the  ethical  interest.  The  position 
of  the  "modern"  school  in  the  Netherlands  is  thus  described  by  Professor 
Bavinck,  of  Kampen  :  "  The  God  we  need  is  not  to  be  found  outside  of 
ourselves,  but  within.  Religion  is  consecration  to  the  moral  ideal,  to  tlie 
power  of  the  good,  to  the  '  Thou  shalt '  of  conscience.  Religion  is  not 
science,  not  a  view  of  the  world,  but  a  specific  conception  of  life.  Pure 
morality,  holiness  is  the  content  of  religion.  Some  adherents  of  this 
tendency  went  to  such  an  extreme  in  the  avowal  of  these  ideas,  that  with 
a  degree  of  justice  an  '  atheistic  school '  of  modern  theology  began  to  be 
spoken  of."— Art.  in  Fresbyt.  and  Bef.  Eev.,  April  1892,  See  also  Dr. 
Martineau's  Ideal  Substitutes  for  God  (1879),  pp.  7,  8  ;  and  the  interesting 
appendix  in  Dr.  Tulloch's  Christian  Doctrine  of  Sin,  on  the  "Modern 
School  of  Dutch  Divines — Die  ethische  Richtung." 

I  need  only  refer  to  Matthew  Arnold's  view  of  religion  as  "  morality 
touched  by  emotion." 

A  warfare  has  recently  been  going  on  in  Germany  on  this  subject  of  a 
dogmatic  or  undogmatic  Christianity,  provoked  by  a  brochure  of  Dreyer's 
entitled  Undogmatisches  Ohristenthum  (1888).  Kaftan  has  replied  in  his 
Glaube  und  Dogma,  and  others  have  taken  part  in  the  controversy. 

In  our  own  country,  it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  the  positions  of  writers 
like  Dr.  Hatch,  in  his  Hil^bert  Lectures  on  The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas 
and  Usages  upon  the  Christian  Church  (1888),  and  Mr.  Bartlett  in  his 
Bampton  Lectures  on  The  Letter  and  the  Spirit,  from  that  of  the  advocates 
of  a  perfectly  undogmatic  Christianity. 


NOTE  K. 

ESTHETIC   THEORIES   OP   RELIGION. 


The  theories  which  ascribe  to  the  ideals  and  beliefs  of  religion  only  an 
imaginative,  poetic,  or  aesthetic  value,  constitute  a  large  family.  In 
Christian  theology  the  tendency  found  a  representative  in  the  beginning  of 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  L  439 

the  century  in  De  Wette,  whose  "  aesthetic  rationalism  "  is  explained  and 
criticised  by  Dorner  {Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  v.  pp.  51-58,  Eng. 
trans.)  and  Pfleiderer  {Develojjment  of  Theology,  pp.  97-102).  On  the  side 
of  materialistic  science,  the  best- known  representative  is  Fr.  A.  Lange, 
author  of  the  History  of  Materialism  (1875),  whose  positions  are  yet 
more  fearlessly  carried  out  by  his  disciple  Vaihinger :  "We  ought  to 
have,  and  may  have,  a  theory  of  the  world  (or  religion),  but  we  must  not 
believe  in  it  theoretically  ;  we  must  only  allow  ourselves  to  be  practically, 
aesthetically,  ethically  influenced  by  it."  See  this  theory  explained  and 
acutely  criticised  in  Stahlin's  Ka7it,  Lotze,  und  Eitschl,  pp.  92-110  (Eng. 
trans.)  ;  and  in  Pfleiderer's  Religionsphilosophie,  ii.  pp.  173-175.  From 
the  idealistic  side,  this  view,  again,  is  represented  by  Vacherot  in  his 
La  Metaphysique  et  la  Science  (1858)  :  "  God  is  the  idea  of  the  world,  and 
the  world  is  the  reality  of  God."  His  theory  is  criticised  at  length  by 
Caro,  in  his  L'Idee  de  Dieu,  chap,  v.,  and  in  Kenan's  Fragments  philo- 
sophiques,  pp.  267-324.  Finally,  Feuerbach,  from  the  atheistic  side, 
regards  the  idea  of  God  as  a  mere  illusion — the  projection  by  man  of 
his  own  ego  into  infinity.     See  his  JVesen  des  Christenthums  (translated). 

Professor  Seth  has  said  of  this  class  of  theories  as  a  whole  :  "  The  faith 
bred  of  ignorance  is  neither  stable,  nor  is  it  likely  to  be  enlightened. 
It  will  either  be  a  completely  empty  acknowledgment,  as  we  see  in  the 
belief  in  the  Unknowable,  or  it  will  be  an  arbitrary  play  of  poetic  fancy, 
such  as  is  proposed  by  Lange  for  our  consolation.  Our  phenomenal 
world,  says  Lange,  is  a  world  of  materialism  ;  but  still  the  Beyond  of 
the  Unknowable  remains  to  us.  There  we  may  figure  to  ourselves  an 
ampler  and  diviner  air,  and  may  construct  a  more  perfect  justice  and 
goodness  than  we  find  on  earth.  The  poets,  in  word  and  music  and 
painting,  are  the  chief  interpreters  of  this  land  of  the  Ideal.  To  them 
we  must  go  if  we  would  restore  our  jaded  spirits.  But  we  may  not  ask 
— or  if  we  do,  we  cannot  learn  —  whether  this  fairyland  exists,  or 
■whether  it  has  any  relation  to  the  world  of  fact.  To  all  which  it  may  be 
confidently  replied,  that  such  an  empty  play  of  fancy  can  discharge  the 
functions  neither  of  philosophy  nor  of  religion.  The  synthesis  of 
philosophy  and  the  clear  confidence  of  religion  may  both,  in  a  sense, 
transcend  the  actual  data  before  us,  and  may  both,  therefore,  have  a 
certain  affinity  with  poetry  ;  but  the  synthesis  is  valueless  and  the 
confidence  ill-timed  if  they  do  not  express  our  deepest  insight  into  facts, 
and  our  deepest  belief  as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  things." — Scottish 
Philosophy,  pp.  178,  179. 


NOTE  L. 

SCHLEIERMACHER   ON   DOGMATICS. 


Schleiermacher's  views  on  the  nature  and  place  of  dogmatics  are  ex- 
pounded in  his  Der  christ.  Glauhe,  Sects.  15-19.  He  says:  "Sect.  15. 
Christian  propositions  of  faith  are  apprehensions  of  the  pious  states  of 


440  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

heart  (Gemiithszustande)  of  the  Christian  exhibited  in  speech.  Sect.  16. 
Dogmatic  propositions  are  propositions  of  faith  of  the  exhibitory  didactic 
kind,  in  which  the  highest  possible  degree  of  definiteness  is  aimed  at. 
Sect.  17.  Dogmatic  propositions  have  a  twofold  value,  an  ecclesiastical 
and  a  scientific  ;  and  through  both,  and  the  relation  of  the  two  to  one 
another,  is  their  perfection  determined.  Sect.  18.  The  placing  together 
of  dogmatic  propositions  with  a  view  to  connect  them  with  one  another, 
and  to  relate  them  to  one  another,  proceeds  from  the  same  need  as  the 
dogmatic  formation  of  propositions  itself,  and  is  only  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  this."  He  says  under  this  section — "  It  is  not  to  be  thought 
that  the  pious  self-consciousness  is  living  enough  to  be  able  to  express 
and  communicate  itself  without  didactic  expression.  .  .  .  And  just  as 
little  in  any  pious  community  is  it  to  be  thought  that  the  single  elements 
of  this  consciousness  can  exist  without  being  obliged  to  form  themselves 
into  the  fulness  of  a  series  of  thoughts,  which  partly  aim,  in  accordance 
with  their  original  end,  at  describing  the  states  of  the  Christian  mind 
(Gemiith)  in  a  real  sequence,  or  in  their  natural  connection ;  partly 
have  the  design  of  perfecting  the  didactic  expression  for  its  own  sake  to 
the  utmost  possible  clearness." 


NOTE  M. 

RELIGIOUS   AND   THEORETIC   KNOWLEDGE. 

A.  Arnold  states  the  distinction  as  it  appears  in  recent  theology  and 
philosophy  thus  :  "  It  has  recently  been  sought  in  manifold  ways,  under 
a  stimulus  derived  from  Kant,  to  find  an  essential  distinction  between 
theoretic  knowledge,  and  a  knowledge  which  does  not  extend  our  know- 
ledge of  objects  in  the  least,  but  stands  solely  in  the  service  of  purely 
subjective  interests.  This  latter  has  only  the  significance  of  expressing 
in  any  given  case  the  worth  of  the  object  for  the  subject ;  these  notions 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  knowledge  of  truth,  but  only  with 
practical  interests  ;  therefore  our  knowledge  is  not  furthered  through 
any  of  these  notions,  but  they  are  only  the  means  for  the  attainment  of 
subjective  ends.  Shortly,  knowing  is  placed  here  at  the  service  of  another 
mental  function,  and  on  this  account  produces,  not  objective  knowledge, 
but  only  representations  (Vorstellungen),  which  are  formed  in  a  foreign 
interest,  but  are  perfectly  indiff'erent  whether  they  also  extend  our 
knowledge— help-representations,  we  may  call  them,  formed  in  order 
by  their  means  to  reach  other  ends.  Should  reference  be  made  to 
truth,  this  would  still  in  no  wise  have  anything  to  do  with  knowledge  ; 
the  truth  of  such  representations  would  be  measured  solely  by  this, 
whether  with  their  help  one  does  or  does  not  attain  the  wished-for  end, 
irrespective  of  whether  these  representations  were  in  themselves  mere 
phantasies  or  not.  Just  for  this  reason  is  all  metaphysical  worth  refused 
to  such  notions,  e.gr.,  aesthetic  or  religious."— Das  menschliche  Erkennen, 
"  Die  auf  Werthurtheile  ruhenden  Begriffe,"  pp.  170,  171. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  441 

The  kindredsliip  of  this  view  to  the  "  sestlietic  rationalism  "  referred  to 
in  last  note  is  greater  than  is  sometimes  acknowledged — in  one  disciple  of 
the  school,  Bender,  it  becomes  indistinguishable  from  it.  (See  his  Das 
Wesen  der  JReligion,  1886.)  It  should,  however,  be  remarked,  that  Kaftan 
has  severed  himself  from 'the  extreme  positions  of  this  school,  and  has 
sought  in  his  various  works  to  find  an  adjustment  between  faith  and 
theoretic  knowledge  which  will  avoid  the  appearance  of  collision  between 
them.  He  expressly  lays  down  the  proposition  that  "there  is  only  o??e 
truth,  and  that  all  truth  is  from  God";  acknowledges  that  faith- 
propositions  have  their  theoretic  side,  and  that  "  in  the  treatment  of  the 
truth  of  the  Christian  religion  it  is  the  theoretic  side  of  these  which 
comes  into  consideration "  ;  explains  that  "  truth "  in  this  connection 
means  simply  what  it  does  in  other  cases,  not  subjective  truth,  but 
"objective" — "the  agreement  of  the  proposition  with  the  real  state  of 
the  case,"  etc.  {Die  Wahrheit,  pp.  1-7).  Most  significant  of  all  is  his 
statement  in  a  recent  article  that  he  has  abandoned  the  expression 
"  Werthurtheile  "  altogether,  as  liable  to  misunderstanding.  "  I  have,"  he 
says,  "  in  this  attempt  to  describe  the  knowledge  of  faith  according  to  its 
kind  and  manner  of  origin,  avoided  the  expression  '  Werthurtheile,' 
although  I  have  earlier  so  characterised  the  propositions  of  faith  (in  which 
the  knowledge  of  faith  is  given).  They  are  theoretic  judgments,  which 
are  grounded  upon  a  judgment  of  worth,  which  therefore  cannot  be 
appropriated  without  entering  into  this  judgment  of  worth  which  lies  at 
their  foundation."—  "  Glaube  und  Dogmatik,"  in  Zeitschrift  fur  Theol.  und 
Kirche,  i.  6,  p.  501. 

Of.  further  on  this  distinction,  Stiihlin's  acute  criticism  in  his  Kant, 
Lotze,  und  Bitschl,  pp.  157 ff.  (Eng.  trans.);  Hartmann  in  his  Beligions- 
philosophie,  ii.  pp.  1-27  ;  Lipsius  in  his  Dogmatik,  pp.  16-93.  Hartmann 
and  Lipsius  deal  at  length  with  the  distinction  and  relations  of  the 
" religious  '*  and  the  "  theoretic  "  "Weltanschauung." 


NOTE  K 

RITSCHL   ON   RELIGION   AND   PHILOSOPHY. 

The  following  extracts  illustrate  the  division  which  Kitschl  makes 
between  religious  and  philosophical  knowledge,  while  acknowledging 
their  application  to  the  same  object : — 

"  The  partition  of  the  material  of  theology  into  rational  propositions 
and  propositions  derived  from  Revelation  is  a  method  whose  validity  is 
no  longer  admitted.  In  opposition  to  it  the  contention  has  gradually 
become  prevalent  that  religion  and  the  theoretic  knowledge  of  tlie  world 
are  distinct  functions  of  the  spirit,  which,  where  they  are  applied  to  the 
same  objects,  do  not  even  partially  coincide,  but  go  in  toto  asunder  from 
each  other ."—Rechtfertigung  und  Versohnung,  iii.  (3rd  ed.)  p.  185. 

"  The  possibility  of  the  intermingling,  and  again  of  the  collision  of  the 
two  kinds  of  knowledge,  lies  in  this,  that  they  are  directed  on  the  same 


442  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I. 

object,  namely,  the  world.  It  is  not  permitted  to  lis  to  content  ourselves 
with  the  peaceful  decision  that  the  Christian  knowledge  grasps  the  world 
as  a  whole,  the  philosophical  establishes  the  particular  and  general  laws 
of  nature  and  of  the  spirit.  For  each  philosophy  combines  with  its  task 
also  the  aim  of  comprehending  the  world-whole  in  a  highest  law  ;  and  a 
highest  law  is  also  for  Christian  knowledge  the  form  in  which  the  world 
as  a  whole  is  comprehended  under  God.  Also,  the  thought  of  God,  which 
belongs  to  religion,  is  in  some  form  or  other  applied  in  every  philosophy 
not  materialistic.  Tlierefore,  provisionally  at  least,  no  distinction  of  the 
two  kinds  of  knowledge  is  to  be  reached  in  the  object." — Ihid.  pp.  193, 194. 


NOTE  0. 

THE   HEGELIAN   THEORY  OF   RELIGION. 

I  HAVE  not  discussed  this  theory  in  the  text,  as  it  does  not  represent  any 
immediately  reigning  tendency.  On  the  crucial  question  of  the  possibility 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  Divine,  Hegel  is  at  the  very  opposite  pole  from 
Schleiermacher  and  Ritschl.  So  far  from  the  mind  being  incapacitated 
for  the  knowledge  of  God,  it  is  its  destiny  as  rational  spirit  to  know  God, 
and  it  cannot  rest  till  it  has  attained  that  knowledge.  But  with  this 
Hegel  holds  what  must  be  regarded  as  essentially  a  false  view  of  the 
relation  of  religion  to  philosophy.  Religion  he  would  have  us  view  as 
but  a  lower  stage  in  the  progress  to  pure  philosophical  thought.  The 
idea  with  him  is  everything.  Religious  truths  are  but  rational  ideas 
clothed  in  a  sensuous  garb.  It  is  the  part  of  philosophy  to  lift  the  veil, 
and  raise  the  idea  to  the  form  of  pure  thought.  Religion  gives  the 
"  Vorstellung,"  or  figurate  representation  ;  philosophy  gives  the  rational 
conception,  or  "  Begriff."  ^  The  claims  of  philosophy  are  here  pitched  too 
high,  as,  on  the  other  hand,  the  claims  of  religion  are  put  too  low. 
There  is  no  mere  "Vorstellung"  in  religion — at  least  in  the  highest 
religion,     Christianity  ;     but    mingling    with    the    figurative    element 

1  The  distinction  is  explained  by  Hegel  in  the  Introduction  to  his  Geschichte  der 
Philosophies  i.  pp.  79-97.  A  fuller  exposition  is  given  in  his  ReligionsphilosopMe, 
i.  pp.  20-25.  "The  object  of  religion,"  he  says,  "as  of  philosophy,  is  the  eternal 
truth  in  its  very  objectivity, — God,  and  nothing  else  than  Grod  and  the  explication 
of  God.  Philosophy  is  not  a  wisdom  of  the  world,  but  knowledge  of  the  non-worldly, 
not  knowledge  of  the  external  mass,  of  empirical  existence  and  life,  but  knowledge 
of  that  which  is  eternal,  what  God  is  and  what  flows  from  His  nature.  For  this 
nature  must  reveal  and  develop  itself,  .  .  .  Religion  and  philosophy  therefore  coin- 
cide in  one  ;  philosophy  is  in  fact  itself  a  service  of  God— is  religion — for  it  is  the 
same  renunciation  of  subjective  conceits  and  opinions  in  the  being  occupied  with 
God.  Philosophy  is  therefore  identical  with  religion,  but  the  difl'erence  is  that  it  is 
this  in  a  peculiar  way,  distinct  from  the  way  which  it  is  customary  to  name  religion 
as  such.  .  .  .  Speculative  philosophy  is  the  consciousness  of  the  Idea,  so  that  all  is 
grasped  as  Idea  ;  but  the  Idea  is  the  true  in  thought  (Gedanken),  not  in  mere 
sensuous  view  (Auschauung)  or  representation  (Vorstellung),"  pp.  21-23,  On  the 
notion  of  religion  particularly,  and  the  stages  of  the  religious  consciousness,  see 
pp.  85-137. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  I.  443 

i?j)roper  to  all  religious  apprehensions  there  is  much  clear  and  precise 
statement  of  spiritual  truth,  much  naked  and  open  vision  of  the  Divine 
spirituality,  righteousness,  and  love  ;  the  constant  shining  through  of  the 
spiritual  reality — the  "  Begriff,"  if  one  wills— even  in  the  case  of  the 
most  figurative  representations.  And  in  philosophy,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  absolute  "Begriff"— no  knowledge  of  the  Divine  which  is 
perfectly  purged  from  all  figurative  and  analogical  elements.  It  is  but  a 
vain  pretension  of  the  Hegelian  or  any  other  philosophy  to  claim  that  it 
knows  God  so  absolutely — so  entirely  as  He  is  in  Himself — that  no 
human  or  representative  features  still  cleave  to  the  conception  ;  a  vain 
dream,  for  example,  of  Biedermann's,  one  of  the  last  representatives  of 
this  mode  of  thought,  that  his  spectral  abstractions  represent  God  better, 
or  are  nearer  the  absolute  truth,  than  the  living  concrete  representations 
of  Scripture.^  The  fault  of  the  Hegelian  theory  is  its  predominatingly 
intellectual  and  abstract  character.  We  do  not  indeed  attribute  to  Hegel 
the  absurd  view  that  religion  has  only  to  do  with  intellectual  appre- 
hension, or  notions  of  the  reason,  and  not  also  with  a  relation  of  the  heart 
and  will.  For  all  that,  the  relation  between  God  and  the  soul  in  religion 
is  too  intellectually  conceived.  God  is  lost  in  logical  relations.  It  is  a 
system  of  categories,  practically,  which  is  presented  to  us  instead  of  the 
Divine.  It  is  the  logical  relation,  the  eternal  truth,  which  absorbs  all  the 
interest.  All  else  is  appearance,  manifestation,  temporary  form.  In  such 
a  system,  Christian  doctrines  find,  of  necessity,  a  new  significance,  and 
the  process  of  extracting  the  "  Begrifl: "  from  them  consists  in  finding  the 
suitable  logical  idea  to  which  they  correspond.  The  "Begriff"  of  the 
Incarnation,  e.g.^  is  the  idea  of  the  essential  unity  of  God  and  man,  and 
the  "Vorstellung"  is  the  representation  of  this  in  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  the  God-Man,  Christ  Jesus.  At  the  shrine  of  the  idea  the  historical  is 
ruthlessly  sacrificed.  It  is  not  thus  that  Christianity  conceives  of  the 
relation  to  the  Father-God  in  Christ ;  and  the  reaction  was  inevitable 
which  led  to  the  repudiation  of  the  metaphysical  in  theology  altogether. 
One  of  the  most  delicate  tasks  of  theology  is  to  adjust  the  relation 
between  these  opposite  one-sidednesses. 

1  Cf.  Biedermann's  Ch/ristlidie  Dogmatik,  ii.  pp.  516-561  (1884-85). 


NOTES    TO     LECTUKE    II. 


NOTE  A. 

THE   CENTRAL   PLACE   OF   CHRIST   IN   HIS   RELIGION. 

The  unique  and  central  place  of  Christ  in  His  religion,  different  from 
that  of  other  founders  of  religion,  is  attested  by  writers  of  the  most 
varied  standpoints. 

Hegel  says :  "  If  we  regard  Christ  in  the  same  light  as  Socrates,  we 
regard  Him  as  a  mere  man,  like  the  Mahometans,  who  consider  Christ 
to  have  been  an  ambassador  from  God,  as  all  great  men  may  generally 
be  called  ambassadors  or  messengers  of  God.  If  we  say  no  more  of 
Christ  than  that  He  was  a  teacher  of  mankind,  and  a  martyr  for  truth, 
we  express  ourselves  neither  from  the  Christian  point  of  view,  nor  from 
that  of  true  religion." — Phil.  d.  Kel.  ii.  p.  287. 

Sclielling  says,  in  his  Phil.  d.  Offenbarung :  "  The  principal  content  of 
Christianity  is,  first,  Christ  Himself ;  not  what  He  said,  but  what  He  is, 
and  did.  Christianity  is  not,  in  the  first  place,  a  doctrine  ;  it  is  a  thing, 
something  objective  ;  and  the  doctrine  can  never  be  anything  but  the 
expression  of  the  thing."  —  Quoted  by  Pfleiderer,  Eeligionsjjhilosophiej 
ii.  p.  16  (Eng.  trans.). 

Dorner  bears  witness  to  the  valuable  service  of  Schelling  and  Hegel  in 
overcoming  the  older  rationalism,  and  introducing  a  profounder  treat- 
ment of  Christological  questions.  —  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  v. 
pp.  100,  138  (Eng.  trans.). 

De  Wette  says:  "The  personality  of  Jesus,  His  life  and  death,  and 
faith  in  Him,  constitute  the  centre  of  Christianity.  The  spirit  of 
religion  became  personal  in  Him,  and,  proceeding  from  Him,  exerted 
an  influence  upon  the  world,  which  stood  in  need  of  a  new  religious 
life  in  order  to  regenerate  it. — Vorles.  ilher  die  Religion,  p.  444  (quoted 
by  Hagenbach), 

Pfleiderer  thus  sums  up  the  views  of  Vatke,  a  post-Hegelian  :  "  All  the 
streams  of  the  world's  history  issue  in  the  kingdom  of  God,  which  is  the 
Avill  of  God  in  its  concrete  development  to  a  moral  commonwealth. 
Providence  here  acts  as  an  actual  spirit  through  all  persons  and  deeds, 
through  which  the  idea  of  the  good  becomes  more  real,  especially  through 
the  creative  world  -  historical  persons,  among  whom  Christ  occuj^ies  a 
unique  position  as  the  centre  point  of  history,  as  the  Revealer  and  the 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  11.  445 

Reality  of  tlie  archetypal  idea,  as  the  love  of  God  grown  personal."— 
BeligionspMlosophie,  ii.  p.  268  (Eng.  trans.). 

On  the  views  of  Biedermann  and  Lipsius,  see  the  Christliche  Dogmatih 
of  the  former,  ii.  pp.  580-600  ("the  central  dogma  of  the  Christian 
principle  "),  and  the  Lehrh.  d.  Dogmatik  of  the  latter,  pp.  535-538.  "  In 
its  dogmatic  utterances  on  the  Person  and  work  of  Christ,"  Lipsius  says, 
"the  Church  expresses  the  consciousness  that  its  existence  has  its 
historical  foundation  in  the  Person  of  Jesus,  not  merely  in  the  sense 
which  would  be  suitable  to  all  other  religions  having  personal  founders, 
but  in  the  sense  that  tlie  Person  of  Christ  is  the  archetypal  representation 
of  the  Christian  idea,  and  therefore  the  authoritative  pattern  for  all  time 
to  come ;  and  that  His  work  forms  the  permanently  sufficient,  therefore 
the  creative,  basis  for  the  constantly  progressing  realisation  of  that  idea 
in  the  common  and  individual  life  of  Christians." — Bog.  p.  537. 

Ritschl  says  :  "The  Person  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  is  the  key 
to  the  Christian  '  Weltanschauung,' and  the  standard  for  the  self -judg- 
ment and  moral  striving  of  Christians."  —  Eecht.  u.  Ver.  iii.  p.  193 
(3rd  ed.).  Cf.  the  comparison  with  Moses,  Zoroaster,  Mahomet,  and 
Buddha,  in  pp.  364,  365. 

Kaftan  emphatically  says  :  "  In  the  question  of  the  Godhead  of  Jesus 
Christ,  the  discussion  turns,  not  on  one  proposition  among  others  which 
a  Christian  recognises  and  confesses,  but  upon  the  central  point  of  the 
entire  Christian  confession  of  faith." — Brauchen  wir  ein  neues  Dogma'? 
p.  52. 

Hartmann,  too,  in  his  Krisis  des  Christemthums,  treats  this  doctrine  as 
the  central  matter,  and  discusses  it  in  his  first  section  under  the  heading, 
"The  Christian  Central  Dogma  and  its  inevitable  Dissolution."  Cf. 
Preface  to  3rd  ed.  of  his  Selbstzersetzung  d.  Christenthums. 

It  is  needless  to  adduce  instances  from  writers  of  a  more  orthodox 
tendency. 


NOTE  B. 

THE   DEFEAT   OF   ARIANISM. 

"  The  Christian  doctrine  has  been  accused,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Church 
Qimrterly  Review,  "  of  being  the  result  of  the  base  intrigues  of  imperial 
politics,  and  to  one  who  resolutely  looks  only  at  the  details  of  much  of 
the  controversy,  such  a  judgment  might  seem  natural,  while  a  close 
acquaintance  with  the  Byzantine  Court  will  not  make  its  odour  more 
pleasing.  But  to  a  wider  view,  such  a  judgment  is  impossible.  The 
decision  of  the  Council  of  Niciea  was  the  result  of  the  free  play  of  the 
theological  ideas  of  the  time  ;  for  Constantine — caring  little  about  the 
result,  though  caring  very  much  for  unity — wisely  left  to  the  Council  a 
free  hand  ;  but  its  decision  may  very  well  have  been  owing  to  the 
influence  of  a  sovereign  who  threw  his  whole  weight  on  the  side  which 
he  saw  was  prevailing.  Arius  was  condemned  by  an  overwhelming 
majority,  but  the  decision  of  the  Council  was  not  sufficient  to  stamp  out 


446  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II. 

opinions  wliicli  had  a  natural  liold  on  a  large  section  of  tlie  Cliurcli.  So 
the  reaction  was  obliged  to  spread.  Arianism  survived  for  fifty  years  ; 
with  the  help  of  imperial  patronage  it  even  obtained  an  unreal  supremacy. 
But  it  had  no  basis  of  truth,  and  was  naturally  hostile  to  Christianity. 
As  long  as  it  was  established,  it  continued  to  exist  ;  orthodoxy  was 
oppressed  and  persecuted,  but  orthodoxy  increased.  As  soon  as  the 
balance  of  the  temporal  power  swung  round,  orthodoxy  became  supreme, 
and  Arianism  vanished  from  the  Empire  as  if  it  had  never  existed.  It 
had  more  than  a  fair  chance,  but  had  no  basis  of  truth.  Orthodoxy  had 
a  terrible  fight  with  odds  against  it,  but  in  the  end  it  was  completely 
victorious." — Church  Quart ,  April-July,  1888,  pp.  462,  463. 

Harnack's  judgment  on  Arianism  is  equally  severe.  "  Only  as  cosmo- 
logists,"  he  says,  "  are  the  Arians  monotheists  ;  as  theologians  and  in 
religion  they  are  polytheists.  Finally,  deep  contradictions  lie  in  the 
background  :  a  Son,  who  is  no  Son  ;  a  Logos,  who  is  no  Logos  ;  a  Mono- 
theism, which  does  not  exclude  Polytheism  ;  two  or  three  Ousias,  who  are 
to  be  worshipped,  while  still  only  one  is  really  distinguished  from  the 
creatures,  an  indefinable  nature,  which  first  becomes  God  when  it 
becomes  man,  and  which  still  is  neither  God  nor  man.  .  .  .  The  opponents 
were  right ;  this  doctrine  leads  back  into  heathenism.  .  .  .  The  orthodox 
doctrine  has,  on  the  contrary,  its  abiding  worth  in  the  upholding  of  the 
faith,  that  in  Christ  God  Himself  has  redeemed  men,  and  led  them  into 
His  fellowship.  .  .  .  This  conviction  of  faith  was  saved  by  Atlianasius 
against  a  doctrine  which  did  not  undei'stand  the  inner  nature  of  religion 
generally,  which  sought  in  religion  only  teaching,  and  ultimately  found 
its  satisfaction  in  an  empty  dialectic." — Grundriss  d.  Dogmengeschichte, 
i.  p.  141  ;  cf.  the  Dogmengeschichte,  pp.  217-224.^ 

On  the  later  history  of  Arianism  in  England,  and  its  transformation 
into  Unitarianism,  see  the  valuable  Appendix  by  Dr.  Fairbairn  to 
Dorner's  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  vol.  v.  pp.  337-466. 


NOTE  C. 

MODERN   UNITARIANISM. 


The  completeness  with  which  modern  Unitarianism  has  divested  itself 

of  every  trace  of  the  supernatural  will  be  seen  from  the  following  extracts. 

Dr.   Martineau,  criticising   Mr.   Greg's    Creed  of  Christendom,  writes  : 

"The  education  and  habits  of  a  refined  and  devout  Unitarian  family 

1  In  his  recent  Lectures  on  The  Incarnation  (p.  91),  Mr.  Gore  directs  attention  to 
two  striking  passages  from  Thomas  Carlyle  and  Tliomas  Hill  Green  to  the  same 
effect  as  the  above.  Mr.  Froude  writes  of  Carlyle  :  "  He  made  one  remark  which  is 
worth  recording.  In  earlier  years  he  had  spoken  contemptuously  of  the  Athauasiau 
Controversy, — of  the  Christian  world  torn  to  pieces  over  a  diphthong.  ...  He  now 
told  me  that  he  perceived  Christianity  itself  to  have  been  at  stake.  If  the  Arians 
had  won,  it  would  have  dwindled  away  to  a  legend.  "—Zi/e  in  London,  ii.  p.  4()2. 
See  Green's  view  in  Works,  iii.  p.  172. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IT.  447 

gave  him  the  theory  of  life  from  which  his  independent  thought  set  out. 
Outside  observers,  both  sceptical  and  mystical,  have  always  upbraided 
that  theory  as  a  weak  attempt  to  blend  incompatible  elements  and  settle 
the  contradictions  of  the  world  by  a  hollow  compromise,  while  not 
denying  its  correspondence  with  a  certain  equilibrium  of  understanding 
and  character.  It  may  be  described  as  essentially  natural  religion, 
enlarged  and  completed  by  a  supernatural  appendix.  The  whole  of  its 
theism,  and  half  of  its  ethics,  were  within  the  reach  of  the  human  reason 
and  conscience  ;  but  of  the  inner  and  higher  range  of  morals, — spiritual 
purity,  forgiveness  of  injuries,  love  to  the  unlovely, — the  obligation  was 
first  impressed  by  the  Christian  Eevelation.  And  the  life  beyond  death, 
vainly  pursued  by  the  dialectic  of  Plato,  and  claimed  by  the  rhetoric  of 
Cicero,  became  an  assured  reality  with  the  Eesurrection  of  Christ.  The 
universe  was  a  mechanical  system  of  delegated  causality,  instituted  for 
beneficent  and  righteous  ends,  and,  for  their  better  attainment,  not 
excluding  fresh  intercalary  volitions  at  special  crises.  .  .  .  The  former  of 
these  conceptions  it  cost  Mr.  Greg  but  little  to  modify  or  even  to 
sacrifice,"  etc. — Nineteenth  Century^  February  1883. 

What  even  Mr.  Greg  desires  to  retain  of  reverence  for  the  spiritual 
perfection  of  Jesus,  Mr.  F.  W.  Newman,  in  his  review  of  the  volume, 
regards  only  as  an  amiable  weakness,  in  total  inconsistency  with  Mr. 
Greg's  own  principles  of  treatment  of  the  Gospels.  See  passage  quoted 
in  Note  F  to  Lecture  I.  (from  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  xiv.). 

In  his  Loss  and  Gain  in  Recent  Theology  (1881),  Dr.  Martineau  sets 
himself  explicitly  to  state  the  position  of  present-day  Unitarianism  ;  and 
the  two  gains  he  principally  notices  are  :  "  the  total  disappearance  from 
our  branch  of  the  Keformed  Churches  of  all  external  authority  in  matters 
of  religion"  ("the  yoke  of  the  Bible  follows  the  yoke  of  the  Church," 
p.  9)  ;  ^  and,  second,  "  the  disappearance  of  the  entire  Messianic  theology." 
"  As  objective  reality,  as  a  faithful  representation  of  our  invisible  and  ideal 
universe,  it  is  gone  from  us,  gone,  therefore,  from  our  interior  religion, 
and  become  an  outside  mythology.  From  the  Person  of  Jesus,  for 
instance,  everything  official,  attached  to  Him  by  evangelists  or  divines, 
has  fallen  away  ;  when  they  put  such  false  robes  on  Him,  they  were  but 
leading  Him  to  death.  The  pomp  of  royal  lineage  and  fulfilled  predic- 
tion, the  prerogatives  of  King,  of  Priest,  of  Judge,  the  advent  with 
retinue  of  angels  on  the  clouds  of  heaven,  are  to  us  mere  deforming 

1  The  late  Principal  Cairns  observes  on  this:  "It  is  important  to  remark  how 
completely  his  admission  bears  out  the  whole  contention  of  writers  of  the  school 
opposite  to  his  in  the  Socinian  controversy,  that  the  tendency  of  Unitarian  doctrine 
and  criticism  was  to  abrogate  the  authority  of  Scripture,  and  reduce  it  to  the  level  of 
human  literature.  This  allegation  was  vehemently  resisted  in  their  day  by  the 
Polish  brethren,  who  often  put  on  Scripture  a  non-natural  sense  rather  than  seem  to 
invade  its  authority  ;  and  in  more  recent  times,  by  Priestley  and  Belsham,  and  other 
controversialists.  It  will  be  remembered  that  in  the  earnest  debate  between  Moses 
Stuart  and  Channing  on  the  Trinity,  the  former  urged  tlie  latter,  by  the  example  of 
Continental  rationalism,  no  longer  to  profess  unlimited  submission  to  Scripture,  but 
to  escape  insuperable  critical  difficulties  which  arose  on  his  side,  by  openly  denying 
its  claims  to  be  a  judge  in  controversy."— Art.  in  Catholic  Presbyterian,  November 
1888. 


448  NOTES  70  LECTURE  TT. 

investitures,  misplaced,  like  court  dresses,  on  the  'spirits  of  the  just,'  and 
He  is  simply  the  Divine  Flower  of  humanity,  blossoming  after  ages  of 
spiritual  growth — the  realised  possibility  of  life  in  God.  .  .  .  All  that  has 
been  added  to  that  real  historic  scene, — the  angels  that  hang  around  His 
birth,  and  the  fiend  that  tempts  His  youth  ;  the  dignities  that  await  His 
future, — the  throne,  the  trumpet,  the  assize,  the  bar  of  judgment  ;  with 
all  the  apocalyptic  splendours  and  terrors  that  ensue, — Hades  and  the 
Crystal  Sea,  Paradise  and  the  Infernal  Gulf,  nay,  the  very  boundary 
walls  of  the  Kosmic  panorama  that  contains  these  things,  have  for  ns 
utterly  melted  away,  and  left  us  amid  the  infinite  space  and  the  silent 
stars  "(pp.  14,  15). 

"Time  was,"  says  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Chadwick,  of  Brooklyn,  "when 
Christianity  was  universally  regarded  by  Unitarians  as  a  supernatural 
revelation,  attested  by  signs  and  wonders,  promulgated  by  One  who,  even 
if  purely  human,  was  endowed  with  certain  supernatural  gifts,  and  per- 
petuated in  a  literature — the  New  Testament — whose  writers  were  mira- 
culously restrained  from  all  erroneous  statement,  whether  of  doctrine  or 
fact.  These  views  are  no  longer  held  in  their  entirety  by  Unitarians.  .  .  . 
There  are  to-day  few  Unitarians,  if  any,  who  believe  in  any  of  the  New 
Testament  miracles,  from  the  birth  of  Jesus  to  His  Resurrection  inclusive, 
in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  miracles — violations  of  natural  laws." — 
In  a  recent  paper,  Wlwj  I  am  a  Unitarian. 


NOTE  D. 

CONCESSIONS   OF   RITSCHLIANS   ON   THE   PERSON   OF   CHRIST. 

In  this  school,  as  stated  in  the  Lectures,  the  attribution  of  Divinity  to 
Christ  is  regarded  as  a  simple  religious  judgment — a  judgment  of  value — 
with  no  metaphysical  meaning  behind  it.  It  simply  expresses  the  value 
which  Christ  has  to  the  believer  as  the  Revealer  of  God  to  him  in  His 
grace  and  truth,  and  tells  us  nothing  of  what  Christ  is  in  Himself.  How 
Christ  came  to  be  what  He  was,  or  what  lies  in  the  constitution  of  His 
Person  behind  this  Revelation,  it  is  no  part  of  the  business  of  theology  to 
inquire.  This  is  the  original  Ritschlian  position,  but  it  is  significant  that 
Ritschl's  followers  are  feeling  the  need  of  some  modification  of  it,  and 
have  already  made  several  significant  concessions.  "  It  is  increasingly 
recognised,"  as  I  have  stated  elsewhere,  "that  we  cannot  stand  simply 
dumb  before  the  Revelation  which  it  is  acknowledged  we  have  in  Christ, 
and  refuse  to  ask  who  this  wonderful  Person  is  that  bears  the  Revelation, 
and  whose  personal  character  and  relation  to  the  kingdom  of  God  is  so 
unique.  We  cannot  rest  with  simply  formulating  the  value  of  Christ  to 
us  ;  we  must  ask  what  He  is  in  Himself.  .  .  .  The  mind  will  not  stay  in 
the  vagueness  of  expressions  about  Christ's  'Godhead,'  to  which  the 
suspicion  constantly  attaches  that  they  are  mere  metaphors.  Thus,  in 
spite  of  their  wishes,  the  Ritschlians  are  forced  to  declare  themselves  a 
little  further,  and  it  is  significant  that,  so  far  as  their  explanations  go, 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II.  449 

they  are  in  the  direction  of  recognising  that  metaphysical  background  in 
Christ's  Person  against  which  at  first  protest  was  entered.^ 

Thus,  in  a  remarkable  passage  in  his  Der  VerJcehr  des  Christen  mit  Gottf 
Hermann  says  :  "  It  may  be  unavoidable  that  this  wonderful  experience 
should  excite  in  us  the  question,  how  a  man  can  win  this  importance  for 
us.  And  it  appears  to  me  as  if,  for  all  who  wish  to  go  back  on  this 
question,  and  follow  out  the  representation  of  a  union  of  the  Divine  and 
human  natures  in  Christ,  the  Christological  decisions  of  the  ancient 
Church  still  always  mark  out  the  limits  within  which  such  attempts 
must  move"  (p.  46,  1st  ed.,  1886). 

In  his  earlier  work.  Die  Religion  im  Verhdltniss  zum  Welterkennen  und 
%ur  Sittlichkeit,  Hermann  had  expressed  himself,  if  possible,  still  more 
decidedly.  "  I  have  certainly  the  conviction,"  he  says,  "  the  grounds  of 
which  I  do  not  need  to  state  here  further,  that  faith  in  Christ  was  led  in 
a  natural  progress  to  the  representation  of  a  pre- existence  of  Christ,  and 
indeed  of  a  personal,  and  not  an  ideal,  pre-existence.  The  assumption 
of  a  so-called  ideal  pre-existence  seems  to  me  unjustified.  It  is  still 
clearly  the  Person  of  the  exalted  Lord,  whose  worth  for  the  Church  and 
for  the  kingdom  of  God  is  expressed  by  saying  that  He  did  not 
come  into  being  under  earthly  conditions  as  we  have  done,  but  that, 
independently  of  the  world,  which  represents  the  perfectly  dependent 
sphere  of  His  Lordship,  He  is.  This  thought  finds,  in  the  expression  of 
a  personal  pre-existence  of  the  Lord,  an  expression  very  full  of  contradic- 
tions indeed,  but  still  the  only  one  which  stands  at  our  command,  which, 
therefore,  must  also  have  its  salutary  truth.  The  contradiction  will  be 
removed,  if  once  a  solution  is  found  of  the  problem  of  time,  in  which  we 
now  view  our  existence.  .  .  .  Faith  is  led  to  this,  to  regard  the  Redeemer, 
whom  it  knows  as  the  Revelation  of  God,  as  pre-existent." — Die  Religion, 
etc.,  pp.  438,  439  (1879). 

Yet  more  positively  do  Bornemann,  in  his  Unterricht  im  Christenthum 
(1891),  and  Kaftan,  in  his  various  works,  demand  a  real  "Godhead"  of 
Christ,  though  still  with  much  criticism  of  "  the  old  dogma,"  ^  and  the 
repudiation  of  all  speculative  or  metaphysical  theologising. 

The  former  says  :  "  Faith  in  the  Godhead  of  Christ  is  in  a  certain  sense 
the  sum  of  the  whole  gospel ;  the  aim  and  the  whole  content  of  the 
Christian  life.  Its  marks  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  Godhead  of  the 
heavenly  Father." — Unterricht,  p.  91. 

Kaftan's  views  are  most  fully  exhibited  in  his  Brauchen  wir  ein  neues 
Dogma  ?  (1890),  ("  Do  we  need  a  New  Dogma  ?"). 

In  a  section  of  this  pamphlet,  under  the  heading,  "  What  think  ye  of 
Christ?"  he  says:  "Many  will  object  that  all  has  no  basis  and  no 
guarantee  of  truth,  if  it  is  not  established  that  Jesus  has  His  origin  and 

1  Art.  on  "The  Ritsclilian  Theology,"  in  The  Thinker,  August  1892. 

2  The  contrast  between  the  "old"  and  the  "new"  is  expressed  by  Kaftan  thus: 
"The  eternal  relation  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Father  is  in  the  old  dogma  the  peculiar 
and  whole  object  of  the  doctrine  ;  it  accords  with  evangelical  Christianity,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  know  His  Godhead  in  its  living  present  relations  to  us  and  to  our 
faith"  (Brauchen  wir,  etc.,  p.  54).  But  this  is  not  an  absolute  opposition,  nor  are 
the  standpoints  necessarily  exclusive. 

29 


450  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  11. 

the  beginning  of  His  earthly  life  from  above,  and  not  from  below.  And 
in  this  lies  something,  the  truth  of  which  cannot  be  gainsaid.  At  least, 
it  is  in  my  view  also  a  consequence  we  cannot  refuse  of  faith  in  the 
Godhead  of  the  Lord,  that  He,  that  His  historical  Person,  stands  in  a 
connection  of  nature  with  God  perfectly  unique  and  not  capable  of  being 
repeated.  We  know  not  how  we  can  call  a  man  '  God,' — the  word  is  too 
great  and  too  weighty, — if  we  do  not  truly  mean  that  the  eternal  God 
Himself  has  come  to  us  in  Him,  and  in  Him  converses  with  us.  ...  Do 
we  believe  in  the  Godhead  of  the  Lord,  then  we  believe  also  in  His  origin 
from  above,  out  of  God." — Brauchen  wir,  etc.,  p.  58.  Of.  the  statements 
in  his  original  work.  Das  Wesen,  etc.,  pp.  308  fF.  (1st.  ed.). 

This  movement  cannot  fail  to  go  further,  and  work  itself  into  clearer 
relations  with  the  old  dogma  which  it  condemns.  ^ 


NOTE  E. 

THE  WEAKNESS   OF   DEISM. 


The  weakness  of  Deism  as  a  logical  system  is  universally  conceded. 
"Deism,"  says  M.  Keville,  "in  sound  philosophy  is  not  tenable.  It 
establishes  a  dualism,  a  veritable  opposition,  between  God  and  the  world, 
which  stand  opposite  to  and  limit  each  other.  ...  A  reaction,  in  fact, 
was  inevitable.  It  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  at  the  same  time 
philosophical  and  religious,  and  should  come  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
needs  that  had  been  misunderstood  and  suppressed.  In  philosophy 
Deism  could  no  longer  hold  up  its  head  against  the  objections  of  reason. 
In  religion,  every  one  was  wearied  of  optimism  and  of  empty  declama- 
tions. Deism  removed  God  so  far  from  the  world  and  from  humanity, 
that  piety  exhausted  itself  in  the  endeavour  to  rejoin  Him  in  the  icy 
heights  of  heaven,  and  ended  by  renouncing  the  attempt." — La  DiviniU 
de  J^sus- Christ,  pp.  163,  171. 

Again  :  "  The  eighteenth  century  little  imagined  that  natural  religion, 
the  religion  which  humanity  was  bound  to  profess  in  this  age  of  idyllic 
virtue,  in  which  le  contrat  social  had  been  elaborated  before  it  was 
corrupted  by  the  artifices  of  priests  and  kings,  was  nothing  else  but 
philosophic  Deism.  It  did  not  perceive  that  this  pretended  natural 
religion  was  merely  an  extract  subtly  derived  from  Christian  tradition, 
the  fruit  of  a  civilisation  already  old  and  artificial,  already  saturated  with 
,  criticism  and  rationalism,  quite  the  opposite  of  a  religion  springing  up 
spontaneously  in  the  human  mind  still  influenced  by  its  primitive 
traditions." — History  of  Religions,  p.  14  (Eng.  trans.). 

Professor  Seth  has  said  :  "  Deism  does  not  perceive  that,  by  separating 
God  from  the  world  and  man,  it  really  makes  Him  finite,  by  setting  up 
alongside  of  Him  a  sphere  to  which  His  relations  are  transient  and 
accidental.    The  philosopher  to  whom  the  individual  self  and  the  sensible 

1  Wendt,  on  the  other  hand,  in  his  Inhalt  der  Lehre  Jesu,  refuses  to  see  in  Jesus 
anything  but  an  ethical  Sonship  (pp.  450-476). 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II.  451 

world  form  the  first  reality,  gradually  comes  to  think  of  this  otiose  Deity 
as  a  more  or  less  ornamental  appendage  in  the  scheme  of  things.  In 
France,  the  century  ended  in  atheism  ;  and  in  cosmopolitan  circles  in 
England  and  Germany,  the  belief  in  God  had  become  little  more  than  a 
form  of  words."— i^rom  Kant  to  Hegel,  p.  24. 

"  The  philosophic  rationalism  of  the  vulgar  Aufklarung,"  says  Hart- 
mann,  "appeared  with  the  claim  to  set  up  in  place  of  the  disesteemed 
historical  religions  a  self-evident  *  natural  religion '  or  '  religion  of  reason ' 
for  all  men,  the  content  of  which  was  first  a  shallow  Deism,  with  its 
trinity  of  ideas  of  a  personal  God,  personal  immortality,  and  personal 
freedom  of  will ;  but  already  in  the  circles  of  the  French  Encyclopajdists 
this  spiritless  Deism  had  struck  over  into  an  equally  spiritless  materialism." 
— Eeligionsphilosophie,  ii.  p.  24. 


NOTE  F. 

WEAKNESS   OF   MODERN   LIBERAL  PROTESTANTISM. 

The  modern  Liberal  Protestantism  in  Germany,  Holland,  Switzerland, 
and  France,  which,  while  discarding  the  supernatural  in  history,  still  re- 
tains the  name  Christian,— nay,  claims  to  be  the  true  Christianity,  purified 
and  brought  into  harmony  with  the  "  modern  "  spirit,— meets  with  scant 
mercy  at  the  hands  of  those  who  have  gone  further,  who  ruthlessly  strip 
off  the  veil  which  disguises  its  essential  rationalism.     Pfleiderer  and 
Reville  may  be  named  as  well-known  representatives.     The  party,  while 
claiming  the  right  to  criticise  and  reject  every  article  of  the  creed,  would 
retain  the  traditional  forms  of  worship,  and  delight,  even,  to  clothe  their 
conceptions  in  the  familiar  forms  of  the  traditional  dogmatics.     It  is 
thus  that  a  service  of  the  "  moderns "  is  described  by  one  of  their  own 
number.     "Only  put  yourself,"  says  this  witness,  "in  the  position  of 
those  who  had  never  received  any  other  teaching,  for  example,  than  that 
Jesus  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  suddenly  heard  their  pastor 
speak    on    some    Christmas  -  day  of    'simple  parents    of    the    man  of 
Nazareth,'  or  on  Easter  Sunday  of  '  the  delusion  of  the  early  Christians 
that  Jesus  has  returned  to  earth  from  his  grave.'  .  .  .  Yet  such  preach- 
ing was  actually  heard.    .   .    .  The  Church  listened,  thought  it  over, 
thought  it  over  again,  and  finally  a  large  number  of  her  members  accepted 
the  new  teaching "  (quoted  by  Mr.  Wicksteed,  Eccl.  Instit.  of  Holland, 
p.  59).     It  is  the  glaring  inconsistency  of  this  position  which  is  remorse- 
lessly satirised  by  writers  like  Strauss  and  Hartmann,  and  the  thing  which 
gives  their  strictures  sharpness  is  that  there  is  so  much  truth  in  them. 

There  was  a  time  when  Strauss  also  wrote  :  "  But  we  have  no  fear  that 
we  should  lose  Christ  by  being  obliged  to  give  up  a  considerable  part  of 
what  was  hitherto  called  the  Christian  creed  !  He  will  remain  to  all  of  us 
the  more  surely,  the  less  anxiously  we  cling  to  doctrines  and  opinions 
that  might  tempt  our  reason  to  forsake  Him.  But  if  Christ  remains  to 
us,  and  if  He  remains  to  us  as  the  highest  we  know,  and  are  capable  of 


452  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  11. 

imagining  witliin  the  spliere  of  religion,  as  the  Person  without  whose 
presence  in  the  mind  no  perfect  piety  is  possible  ;  we  may  fairly  say  that 
in  Him  do  we  still  possess  the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Christian  faith  " 
(Selbstgesprdche,  p.  67,  Eng.  trans.).  But  in  his  The  Old  Faith  and  the  New, 
Strauss  later  faced  the  question,  "  Are  we  still  Christians  ? "  with  a  bolder 
look,  and  gave  it  the  uncompromising  answer,  "  No."  He  goes  over  the 
articles  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  one  by  one,  and  shows  that  every  one  of 
them  is  taken  by  the  "  modern  "  theologians  in  a  non- natural  sense.  He 
invites  his  readers  "to  assist  in  thought  at  the  cycle  of  festivals  in  a 
Protestant  church,  whose  minister  stands  on  the  ground  of  present-day 
science,  and  see  whether  he  can  still  be  uprightly  and  naturally  edified 
thereby."  He  pictures  the  statements  that  such  a  minister  would  be 
compelled  to  make  at  Christmas,  at  the  Epiphany,  at  Good  Friday,  at 
Easter,  and  Ascension  Day  ;  compares  them  with  the  book  he  reads,  the 
prayers  he  uses,  the  sacraments  he  administers  ;  and  shows  how  com- 
pletely the  whole  thing  is  a  ludicrous  pretence.  His  conclusion  is  :  "  If 
we  do  not  wish  to  escape  difficulties,  if  we  do  not  wish  to  twist  and 
dissemble,  if  we  wish  our  yea  to  be  yea,  and  our  nay,  nay, — in  short,  if 
we  would  speak  as  honourable,  upright  men, — we  must  confess,  we  are  no 
longer  Christians." — Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glauhe,  pp.  12-94. 

Hartmann  is  even  more  severe  on  the  unchristian  character  of  the 
modern  Protestant  Liberalism  in  his  Selbstzersetzung  des  Christenthums 
(chaps,  vi.  and  vii.).  "We  ask,"  he  says,  "what  right  the  Protestant 
Liberals  have  to  call  themselves  Christians  beyond  the  fact  that  their 
parents  have  had  them  baptized  and  confirmed.  In  all  ages  there  has 
been  one  common  mark  of  the  Christian  religion — belief  in  Christ.  .  .  . 
But  we  have  seen  that  the  Liberal  Protestants  cannot  believe  in  Christ  as 
either  Luther,  or  Thomas  of  Aquinas,  or  John,  or  Paul,  or  Peter,  believed 
in  Christ,  and  least  of  all  as  Jesus  believed  in  Himself,  for  He  believed 
Himself  to  be  the  Christ— the  Messiah"  (pp.  64,  65). 

Apart,  however,  from  criticisms  of  opponents,  which  may  be  deemed 
unfair,  it  is  a  fact  that,  through  all  its  history,  Protestant  Liberalism  has 
found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  maintain  itself  on  the  platform  even  of 
Theism,  not  to  speak  of  that  of  Christianity.  Its  tendency  has  been 
Constantly  "downgrade,"  till  either  it  has  ended  in  open  rejection  of 
Christianity,  or  has  been  displaced  by  more  positive  forms  of  belief. 
Strauss's  case  is  not  a  solitary  one.  A  parallel  is  found  in  the  career  of 
Edmond  Scherer,  the  inaugurator  of  the  modern  Liberal  movement  in 
Switzerland  and  France,  who,  beginning  with  the  most  uncompromising 
traditional  orthodoxy,  went  on,  according  to  M.  Gretillat,  to  the 
progressive  repudiation  of  all  the  fundamentals  of  Christian  belief, 
religious  and  even  moral,  up  to  the  point  of  absolute  scepticism.  The 
party  of  Liberal  Christianity  initiated  by  him,  of  which  Reville  is  a 
surviving  representative,  had,  according  to  the  same  authority,  "  only  a 
fleeting  existence,  and  its  name,  to  speak  in  popular  language,  soon  dis- 
appeared from  the  handbill "  ^  (article  on  "  Theological  Thought  among 
French  Protestants  "  in  Presbyt.  and  Ref.  Review,  July  1892).  In  Holland, 
too,  the  "modern"  school  is  seen  running  a  remarkable  course.  Its 
1  It  was  replaced  by  newer  Ritschlian  tendencies. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  11.  453 

originator,  Scholten,  was  at  first,  like  Sclierer  of  Geneva,  quite  conserva- 
tive. Then  he  passed  to  a  view  of  Eevelation  and  of  Christianity  not 
unlike  Pfleiderer's.  His  "  thoughts,  however,  were  not  expounded  with 
perfect  distinctness  in  the  beginning.  They  were  too  much  clothed  in  the 
old  orthodox  forms,  and  had  too  large  an  admixture  of  conservative 
elements  for  this.  Scholten  himself  lived  in  the  honest  conviction  of 
having  discovered  the  reconciliation  of  faith  and  knowledge,  of  theology 
and  philosophy,  of  the  heart  and  the  intellect.  He  was  able  also  to  impart 
this  conviction  to  others.  Soon  the  new  Gospel  was  proclaimed  with 
enthusiasm  from  many  pulpits.  .  .  .  Among  his  followers  the  illusion  was 
well-nigh  imiversal,  that  the  reasonableness  of  the  faith  and  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Reformed  Church  had  been  established."  This  confidence 
received  a  rude  shock  when,  in  1864,  Scholten  himself  declared  that,  while 
formerly  believing  that  he  found  in  the  Scriptures,  rightly  expounded,  his 
view  of  the  world,  he  was  no  longer  of  that  opinion.  "  He  now  begins  to 
recognise  that  between  his  ideas  and  those  of  the  Bible  there  is  no  agree- 
ment, but  a  deep  chasm.  .  .  .  The  results  soon  showed  themselves.  The 
illusion  had  been  dispelled  ;  faith  and  enthusiasm  suffered  shipwreck. 
Some  ministers,  like  Pierson  and  Busken  Huet,  resigned  the  office  and  left 
the  Church.  Others  felt  dissatisfied  with  the  monism  of  Scholten.  .  .  . 
A  whole  group  of  modern  theologians  broke  loose  from  Scholten's  system, 
and  sought  a  closer  alliance  with  Hoekstra.  .  .  .  Some  adherents  of  this 
tendency  went  to  such  an  extreme  in  the  avowal  of  these  ideas  that,  with 
a  degree  of  justice,  an  '  atheistic  shade '  of  modern  theology  began  to  be 
spoken  of." — Professor  Bavinck,  of  Kampen,  in  Preshyt.  and  Eef.  Review^ 
April  1892. 

Professor  Bavinck  thus  sums  up  on  the  development  in  Holland  :  "  In 
casting  a  retrospective  glance  at  the  three  tendencies  described  up  to  this 
point,  we  are  struck  with  the  tragic  aspect  of  this  development  of  dogmatic 
thought.  It  is  a  slow  process  of  dissolution  that  meets  our  view.  It  began 
with  setting  aside  the  Confession.  Scripture  alone  was  to  be  heard.  Next, 
Scripture  also  is  dismissed,  and  the  Person  of  Christ  is  fallen  back  on. 
Of  this  Person,  however,  first  His  Divinity,  next  His  pre-existence,  finally 
His  sinlessness,  are  surrendered,  and  nothing  remains  but  a  pious  man,  a 
religious  genius,  revealing  to  us  the  love  of  God.  But  even  the  existence 
and  love  of  God  are  not  able  to  withstand  criticism.  Thus  the  moral 
element  in  man  becomes  the  last  basis  from  which  the  battle  against 
Materialism  is  conducted.  But  this  basis  will  appear  to  be  as  unstable 
and  unreliable  as  the  others." 


NOTE  G. 

CHRISTIANITY  AND   THE  IDEA   OP  PROGRESS. 

"The  hopeful  view  of  human  history,"  says  Professor  J.  Candlish, 
"according  to  which  there  is  to  be  expected  a  gradual  progress  in  an 
upward  direction,  and  an  ultimate  state  of  goodness  and  happiness,  was 


454  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II. 

entirely  foreign  to  tlie  ideas  of  the  ancient  world.  Its  pliilosopliers  and 
poets  either  regarded  the  course  of  mankind  as  a  continual  degeneracy 
from  a  golden  age  in  the  past,  or  as  a  vast  cycle  in  which  there  was  a 
continual  return  or  reproduction  of  the  same  events  and  states  of  things. 
.  .  .  The  idea  of  the  perfectibility  of  mankind,  and  of  the  gradual  and 
steady  improvement  of  the  race  in  the  course  of  time,  which  has  been  so 
largely  used  by  those  who  reject  Christianity,  and  which  enables  them 
to  make  light  of  the  supernatural  grounds  of  hope  for  the  world  that 
Christians  cherish,  was  entirely  strange  to  the  pre-Christian  ages  ;  and 
though  it  may  be  due  in  part  to  the  progress  of  science,  yet  is  much  more 
to  be  ascribed  to  the  promises  and  truths  of  Revelation.  At  least  it  may 
be  said  with  truth  that  Christianity,  and  more  particularly  the  Christian 
idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  furnishes  the  only  solid  ground  for  such 
hopes  for  mankind.  ...  In  modern  times  the  discoveries  of  science  in 
its  investigation  of  the  works  of  creation  have  tended  to  awaken  in  men's 
minds  a  similar  hopeful  spirit,  so  that  the  gradual  and  sure  advance  of 
mankind  to  perfection  has  been  accepted  almost  as  an  axiom  or  self- 
evident  truth  by  many  who  do  not  accept  the  religious  basis  on  which  it 
rested  in  Israel.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether,  apart  from  a  belief  in 
God  as  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  and  at  the  same  time  the  God  of 
grace  and  salvation,  there  is  any  solid  foundation  for  such  a  hopeful  view 
of  the  world's  history.  The  rise  and  prevalence  of  Pessimistic  views  in 
modern  times  serves  to  show  this ;  and  some  of  those  who  are  most 
sanguine  about  the  prospects  of  mankind,  apart  from  Eevelation  and 
Christianity,  acknowledge  frankly  that  there  can  be  no  certainty  of  this 
on  a  merely  natural  basis,  and  that  possibly  after  all  we  may  have  to  fall 
back  into  Pessimism." — Tlie  Kingdom  of  G^o^-(Cunningham  Lectures,  1884), 
pp.  38-42. 

See  on  this  subject  the  careful  history  of  the  idea  of  progress  in  Flint's 
Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  28-42  ;  and  the  valuable  remarks  in  Hare's 
Guesses  at  Truth  (referred  to  also  by  Dr.  Candlish),  pp.  305-348  (1871).' 
Cf.  Leopardi's  (and  Hartmann's)  three  stages  of  human  illusion,  in  Caro's 
Le  Pessimisme,  pp.  39-49. 


NOTE  H. 

THE   PREVALENCE   OF   PESSIMISM. 

"  It  is  a  singular  phenomenon,"  says  Luthardt,  "  that  in  our  time,  in 
which  so  much  complaint  is  made  of  the  decay  of  philosophical  study  and 
interest,  a  definite  philosophical  system  has  attained  a  popularity  which  is 
almost  without  precedent  in  earlier  systems  ;  and  a  philosophical  work 
has  had  a  success  which  usually  falls  only  to  the  lot  of  the  most  spirited 
literary  works,  and  to  romances.  I  refer  to  the  philosophy  of  Pessimism, 
and  to  the  work  of  E.  von  Hartmann,  The  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious." 
—Die  Mod.  Welt.  p.  183. 

Caro  observes  :  "  We  can  now  understand  in  what  sense,  and  how  far  it 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IL  455 

is  true  that  the  disease  of  Pessimism  is  a  disease  'essentially  modern.' ^ 
.  .  .  How  strange  this  revival  of  Buddhistic  Pessimism,  with  all  the 
apparatus  of  the  most  learned  systems,  in  the  heart  of  Prussia,  at 
Berlin  !  That  three  hundred  millions  of  Asiatics  should  drink  in  long 
draughts  the  opium  of  these  fatal  doctrines  which  enervate  and  act  as  a 
soporific  on  the  will  is  already  sufficiently  strange ;  but  that  a  race, 
energetic,  disciplined,  so  strongly  constituted  for  knowledge  and  for 
action,  at  the  same  time  so  practical,  a  rigorous  calculator,  warlike  and 
stern,  certainly  the  opposite  of  a  sentimental  race, — that  a  nation  formed  of 
these  robust  and  lively  elements  should  give  a  triumphant  welcome  to 
these  theories  of  despair  divulged  by  Schopenhauer, — that  its  military 
optimism  should  accept  with  a  sort  of  enthusiasm  the  apology  for  death 
and  for  annihilation, — it  is  this  which  at  the  first  view  seems  inexplicable. 
And  the  success  of  the  doctrine  is  not  confined  to  the  banks  of  the  Spree. 
The  whole  of  Germany  has  become  attentive  to  this  movement  of  ideas. 
Italy,  with  a  great  poet,  had  outstripped  the  current ;  France,  as  we  shall 
see,  has  followed  in  a  certain  measure  ;  she  also,  at  the  present  hour,  has 
her  Pessimists." — Le  Pessimisme,  pp.  25,  26. 

"  There  can  be  no  question,"  says*  Karl  Peters,  "  that  Schopenhauerism 
is  for  the  time  the  dominating  tendency  in  our  fatherland.  One  needs 
only  to  consult  Laban's  book-list  to  be  convinced  of  the  fact ;  our  whole 
atmosphere  is,  so  to  speak,  saturated  with  Schopenhauer's  views  and 
ideas.  .  .  .  Hand  in  hand  with  the  colossal  forward  development  of  our 
race  in  all  departments,  goes  the  fact  that  the  sorrow  of  earthly  existence 
is  felt  to-day  more  keenly  than  ever  by  the  masses.  A  decided  Pessimistic 
current  goes  through  our  time." — Willenswelt,  pp.  109,  244. 

Pessimism,  according  to  Hartmann,  is  the  deeper  mood  of  humanity — 
its  permanent  undertone  (Selbstzer.  d.  Christ,  p.  96). 


NOTE  I. 

THE  LITERATURE  OF  PESSIMISM. 

The  following  books  are  referred  to  in  the  Lectures  and  Notes,  and  may 
be  consulted  on  the  subject  of  Pessimism  :— 

Schopenhauer's  Die  Welt  ah  Wille  und  Vorstellung.  Translated  into 
English. 

Hartmann's  Philosophie  des  Unbewussten.    Versuch  einer  JVeltanschauung. 

Translated. 

Hartmann's  Zur  Geschichte  und  Begriindung  des  Pessimismus.     1880. 

Hartmann's  Religionsphilosophie  :  Die  Religion  des  Geistes.  1882.  Many 
excellent  ideas. 

Hartmann's  Selhstzersetzung  des  Christenthums  und  Die  Religion  der 
Zukunft.     1888.     French  translation  under  title  La  Religion  de  UAvenir. 

iMartenseu  remarks  of  modern  Pessimism  that  "a  Pessimism  like  it,  though  it 
be  far  from  Christian,  can  only  be  found  in  the  Christian  world,  where  the  infinite 
cravingof  personality  has  been  awakened."— CAmiiaw  Ethics,  i.  p.  178  (Eug.  trans.). 


456  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II, 

Koeber's  Die  Philosophie  Arthur  Schopenhauers.     1888. 

Karl  Peters'  Willenswelt  und  Weltwillej  Studien  und  Ideen  %u  einer  Welt- 
anschauung.    1883.     Acute  critique  of  systems,  and  excellent  points. 

W.  Gass's  Optimismus  und  Pessimismus.  Der  Gang  der  christlichen  Welt- 
und  Lehens-ansicht.     1876. 

Caro's  Le  Pessimisme  au  xix^  siecle,  1878  ;  and  ProUemes  de  Morale 
Sociale.     1887. 

Jouvon's  Le  Pessimisme.     1892.     Crowned  by  the  Academy. 

Sully's  Pessimism ;  a  History  and  a  Criticism.     1877. 

Luthardt's  Die  modernen  Weltanschauun^en  und  ihre  praktischen  Konse- 
quenzen.     1880. 

Wright's  Ecclesiastes  in  relation  to  Modem  Criticism  and  Pessimism.  1883. 

Kenan's  Dialogues  et  Fragments  philosophiques.     1876. 

Flint's  Anti-Theistic  Theories.     1885. 

Essays  in  Philosophical  Criticism.     1883.     Edited  by  Seth  and  Haldane. 

Pfleiderer's  Religionsphilosophie,  vol.  ii.     Eng.  trans. 

Radford's  Modern  Pessimism^  in  "Present  Day  Tracts"  (a  popular 
statement). 

Mallock's  Is  Life  Worth  Living  ?    1885. 

See  also  sections  in  Martensen's  Ethics,  and  similar  works. 


NOTE  J. 

TRANSITION  FROM   PESSIMISM   TO  THEISM — HARTMANN   AND   KARL   PETERS. 

It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that  Pessimism  also  should  end  by 
recognising  the  need  of  religion,  and  in  its  own  way  should  be  found  seek- 
ing to  provide  for  that  need.     The  new  religion,  Hartmann  thinks,  will 
represent  the  synthesis  of  the  religious  evolution  of  the  East  and  of  that  of 
the  West — of  the  pantheistic  and  of  the  monotheistic  evolution  :  only 
resting  on  that  which  is  the  indispensable  presupposition  of  all  religion, 
"the  Pessimism  of  positive  Christianity."    He  describes  it  as  "a  Pantheism, 
and  indeed  a  pantheistic  Monism  (with  exclusion  of  all  Polytheism)  ;  or 
impersonal  immanent  Monotheism,  whose  Godhead  has  the  world  as  its 
objective  manifestation,  not  outside  of,  but  within  itself  "  {Selhst.  d.  Christ. 
pp.  93,  97,  121).     The  basis  of  this  new  religious  system  is  elaborated  in 
the  second  part  of  his  Religionsphilosophie,  entitled  Die  Religion  des  Geistes. 
A  simple  reference  to  the  table  of  contents  in  this  work  will  show  in  how 
extraordinary  a  fashion  it  is  attempted  to  take  over  the  whole  nomen- 
clature of  Christianity  into  this  new  philosophical  religion.     First  the 
human  side  of  the  religious  relation  is  treated  of,  often  very  suggestively. 
Then  it  is  treated  of  in  its  double-sided  aspect— Divine  and  human — 
under  the   following  headings  —  (1)  Grace  and  Faith  in  General;  (2) 
The  Grace  of  Revelation  and   Intellectual  Faith ;    (3)  The   Grace  of 
Redemption  and  Faith  of  the  Heart ;  (4)  The  Grace  of  Sanctification  and 
Practical  Faith.     The  object  of  religion  in  turn  is  considered  in  a  three- 
fold aspect — (1)  God  as  the  Moment  overcoming  the  Dependency  of  the 
World;    (2)    God  as  the  Moment  grounding  the  Dependency  of  the> 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IL  457 

world ;  (3)  God  as  the  Moment  grounding  the  Freedom  of  the  world 
(Freedom  in  God,  the  righteousness  of  God,  the  holiness  of  God).  Man 
is  considered— (1)  as  in  need  of  Redemption ;  and  (2)  as  capable  of 
Redemption.  The  process  of  salvation  itself  is  exhibited  in  a  threefold 
light— (1)  The  Awakening  of  Grace ;  (2)  The  Unfolding  of  Grace  ;  (3) 
The  Fruits  of  Grace  (!).  Yet  God,  endowed  with  all  these  attributes, 
wise,  omniscient,  gracious,  righteous,  holy,  etc.,  is  still  regarded  as  im- 
personal and  unconscious.  Is  not  Hartmann  chargeable  with  the  same 
fault  which  he  seeks  to  fasten  on  the  Protestant  Liberals,  of  trying  to 
profit  by  the  respect  which  is  paid  to  the  Bible  while  teaching  a  totally 
different  doctrine  %  (Selbst.  d.  Christ,  p.  62). 

Karl  Peters  is  undoubtedly  right,  when  he  says  of  the  systems  both  of 
Frauenstadt  and  of  Hartmann,  that  they  represent  the  transition  to 
Theism  without  knowing  it.  In  Frauenstadt's  system,  he  remarks,  "  the 
world  in  its  totality  is  no  more  identified  with  the  world-Ego,  and  we 
have,  without  being  aware  of  it,  gone  over  from  Pantheism  to  Theism." 
Criticising  Hartmann,  he  comments  on  "  this  absolute,  unconscious,  all- 
wise  idea,  an  omniscient  wisdom,  which  embraces  all,  and  only  knows 
not  itself,"  and  argues  that  in  principle  Theism  is  involved  in  Hartmann's 
doctrine.  "Here,"  he  says,  "we  reach  the  kernel  of  the  whole  criticism. 
I  maintain,  namely,  positively,  that  the  Philosophy  of  the  Unconscious 
represents  the  transition  from  Pantheism  to  Theism.  ...  As  in  Schopen- 
hauer, we  have  the  transition  from  an  idealistic  to  a  realistic,  so  in 
Hartmann  there  is  executed  the  transition  from  a  pantheistic  to  a  theistic 
'  Weltanschauung.'  The  former  indeed  believed  himself  to  stand  on  quite 
the  other  side,  and  no  doubt  the  latter  also  thinks  that  he  is  planted  on 
the  opposite  bank.  But  as  Schopenhauer  could  not  prevent  the  historical 
development  from  growing  beyond  his  standpoint,  so  Hartmann  will  seek 
in  vain  to  guard  himself  against  such  a  breaking  up  of  his  system.  .  .  . 
Ed.  V.  Hartmann's  Unconscious  is  an  almighty  and  all- wise  Providence, 
raised  above  the  world-process,  which  comprehends  and  holds  within 
itself  the  whole  woTld-deYelo^meTit."—Willenswelt,  pp.  148,  268,  272. 


NOTE  K. 

MATERIALISM   IN   GERMANY. 

The  descent  from  an  overstrained  idealistic  Pantheism  to  materialistic 
Atheism  in  Germany— through  Feuerbach,  Stirner,  Ruge,  etc.— is  matter 
of  notoriety.  The  following  extract  from  an  able  article  on  "Lotze's 
Theistic  Philosophy,"  in  the  Presbyterian  Review,  vol.  vi.  (1885),  will 
illustrate  the  length  to  which  things  went  in  that  direction  :— 

"  The  one-sided  opposition  of  Empiricism  to  Idealism  developed  into 
dogmatic  Materialism.  From  the  18th  September,  1854,  when  Rudolph 
Wagner  delivered  at  Gottingen  his  famous  address  on  '  The  Creation  of 
Man  and  the  Substance  of  the  Soul,'  the  Materialistic  conflict  raged  in 
Germany  for  a  couple  of  decades  with  unabated  vigour.     Taking  up  the 


458  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II, 

gauntlet  wliicli  Wagner  had  tlirown  down,  Karl  Vogt  entered  tlie  lists 
with  '  Kohlerglaube  imd  Wissenschaft,'  flaunting,  amidst  satire  and 
ridicule,  in  the  face  of  his  opponent,  who  had  declared  himself  content 
with  the  simple  religious  faith  of  the  collier,  the  now  famous  sentence  that 
*  thought  stands  in  about  the  same  relation  to  the  brain,  as  gall  to  the 
liver  or  urine  to  the  kidneys.'  A  flood  of  writings,  more  or  less  popular 
in  style,  followed,  and  a  sort  of  religious  propaganda  was  made  of  the 
gospel  of  Materialism,  while  a  fierce  crusade  was  waged  against  everything 
claiming  to  be  superior  to  matter,  or  a  '  function '  of  matter.  The  hostility 
against  religion  was  pronounced  and  bitter.  The  creed  preached  was 
Atheism,  naked  and  unashamed.  Matter  is  held  to  be  eternal ;  physical 
and  chemical  forces  are  the  only  ultimate  agents  ;  the  world  exists,  Vogt 
tells  us,  'without  organic  substance,  without  a  known  Creator,  nay, 
without  a  leading  idea.'  Hellwald  expressly  announces  that  the  task  of 
science  is  '  to  destroy  all  ideals,  to  manifest  their  hollowness  and  nothing- 
ness, to  show  that  belief  in  God  and  religion  is  deception  ; '  while  Biichner, 
who  is  ever,  if  j^ossible,  a  little  more  audacious  than  the  rest,  sums  up  the 
matter  as  follows :  '  Theism,  or  belief  in  a  personal  God,  leads,  as  all 
history  shows,  to  monachism,  and  the  rule  of  priests  ;  Pantheism,  or 
belief  in  an  all-pervading  God,  leads,  where  it  is  in  the  ascendency,  to 
contempt  of  the  senses,  denial  of  the  Ego,  to  absorption  in  God,  and  to  a 
state  of  stagnation.  Atheism,  or  philosophical  Monism,  alone  leads  to 
freedom,  to  intelligence,  to  progress,  to  due  recognition  of  man — in  a  word, 
to  Humanism.'  .  .  .  The  progress  of  Materialism  was  rapid.  Blichner's 
Force  and  Matter^  the  'Bible  of  German  Materialism,'  passed,  within 
twenty  years  from  its  first  appearance  (1858),  through  no  less  than  fourteen 
editions,  and  was  translated  into  almost  every  language  in  Europe.  The 
scientific  camp  was  said  to  be  materialistic  almost  to  a  man.  The  common 
people,  among  whom  this  way  of  thinking  was  frequently  allied  with  the 
political  tenets  of  social  democracy,  were,  and  are  still  to-day,  largely 
leavened  by  the  infection.  The  philosophical  chairs  in  the  Universities 
were  feeble  to  resist  it.  .  .  .  Materialism  in  Germany  is  no  longer  as 
strong  as  it  was  ;  good  authorities  express  it  as  their  opinion  that  as  it 
grew,  so  also  it  is  waning  '  rapidly ' "  (pp.  652-655). 

See  also  the  sketch  of  the  German  atheistic  parties  in  Lichtenberger's 
"History  of  German  Theology  in  the  Nineteenth  Century"  (Histoire  des 
Id^es  religieuses  en  Allemagne),  pp.  360-70  (Eng.  trans.) ;  and  Christlieb's 
"Modern  Doubt  and  Christian  Belief"  {Moderne  Zweifel  am  christliche 
Glauhe),  j^p.  138-40  (Eng.  trans.). 


NOTE  L. 
fichte's  later  philosophy. 


EiCHTE  himself  always  maintained  that  his  philosophy  was  a  unity 
throughout,  and  Professor  Adamson,  in  his  book  onFichte  in  the 
"  Philosophical  Classics,"  supports  this  contention.     Passages  are  quoted 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II.  459 

also  in  the  "Memoir"  of  Ficlite  prefixed  to  the  English  translation  of  his 
popular  works,  to  show  that  from  the  first  Fichte  distinguished  between 
the  individual  Ego  and  the  absolute  Ego,  from  which  the  individual  Ego 
is  deduced.  It  would  be  difficult,  however,  to  make  this  out  from  his 
earliest  work — the  JVissenschaftslehre.  Our  starting-point  in  thinking 
through  the  process  there  described  must  always  be  the  concrete  Ego  — 
for  that  alone  is  given  in  consciousness,  or  "intellectual  intuition." 
Indeed,  Fichte's  view  strictly  pressed  yields  no  other  self, — or  conscious 
Ego, — for  to  arrive  at  self-consciousness  we  must  posit  the  negation  or 
limit ;  and  the  absolute  Ego,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  which  antecedes  or 
stands  behiiid  this  primary  act,  is  not  conscious — is  something  outside  of 
tliought  or  conception  altogether,  an  Unknowable,  and  is  taken  no  account 
of — if  indeed  it  is  assumed — in  Fichte's  earlier  dialectic.  The  only 
Ego  we  know  in  self-consciousness  is  an  Ego  limited  by  the  Non-ego, 
which  appears  to  it  as  foreign.  It  is  a  further  stage  when  Fichte, 
analysing  the  conditions  of  self-consciousness,  gets  behind  it  (in  spite  of 
protests  that  this  is  impossible)  to  a  "  pure  "  Ego,  which  is  not  the  Ego  of 
the  intuitive  consciousness  at  all,  but  only  an  abstraction  of  the  "  form  " 
of  self-consciousness  from  the  concrete  Egos  in  which  alone  it  has  reality. 

To  get  out  of  the  difficulty  now  arising  from  positing  an  absolute  Ego 
behind  consciousness,  from  which  the  latter  is  supposed  to  be  derived, 
Fichte  falls  on  the  expedient  of  asserting  that  all  exists  at  once  and 
eternally — "  at  a  stroke  " — that  there  is  no  temporal  derivation  in  the  case. 
Apart,  however,  from  the  difficulties  about  time  which  this  suggests,  it 
has  the  effect  of  making  the  sole  reality  of  the  Absolute  to  consist  in  the 
individual  Egos,  which  are  its  concrete  embodiments.  Apart  from  these, 
the  pure  Ego  is,  on  the  one  hand,  only  an  ideal  pre-supposition  or  logical 
condition, — on  the  other,  a  goal  or  ideal  to  which  self-consciousness  tends 
without  ever  realising  it — the  ideal  self-consciousness — God. 

From  this  position  Fichte  comes  more  and  more  to  recognise  the 
Absolute  as  something  real,  from  which  the  individual  Egos  and  the  world 
arise  ;  but  he  does  this  again  through  several  stages  of  development.  The 
Absolute  is  first  conceived  of  in  Schelling's  sense  as  the  "  Neutrum "  or 
indifference-point  between  subject  and  object ;  then  as  "Life,"  finally  as 
"Will," — or  God  in  the  sense  described  in  the  quotation  in  the  text. 
The  higher  Pantheism  here  closely  verges  on,  if  it  does  not  merge  into, 
Theism.^ 

Fichte's  Christology  turns  on  the  distinction  of  that  which  is  absolutely 
and  eternally  true,  and  that  which  is  true  only  from  the  temporary  point 
of  view  of  Jesus  and  His  Apostles.  He  starts  from  the  Johannine 
description  in  the  Prologue  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  explains  thus  :— 
From  the  first  or  metaphysical  standpoint,  the  eternal  Knowledge  or  Word 
becomes  flesh,  assumes  a  personal,  sensible,  and  human  existence,  in  every 
individual  man  who  has  a  living  insight  into  this  unity  with  God,  and 
who  actually  gives  up  his  personal  life  to  the  Divine  life  within  him,— 
precisely  in  the  same  way  as  it  became  incarnate  in  Jesus  Christ.  From 
the  historical  point  of  view,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  absolutely  by  and  through 

1  On  Fichte's  philosophy,  cf.  Professor  Adamsoii's  Fichte,  in  "Philosophical 
Classics,"  and  Professor  Seth's  Hegelianism  and  Personality,  Lecture  II. 


46o  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IL 

Himself,  is  the  perfect  sensible  manifestation  of  the  eternal  Word,  as  no 
one  whatever  has  been  before  Him  ;  while  those  who  are  His  disciples  are 
as  yet  not  so,  but  must  first  become  so  through  Him.  He  thus  secures  a 
certain  uniqueness  in  the  Person  of  Jesus — "  thus  it  is  confirmed  in  every- 
way, that,  even  to  the  end  of  time,  all  wise  and  intelligent  men  must  bow 
themselves  reverently  before  this  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ;  and  that  the  more 
wise,  intelligent,  and  noble  they  themselves  are,  the  more  humbly  will 
they  recognise  the  exceeding  nobleness  of  this  great  and  glorious 
manifestation  of  the  Divine  Life."  Yet  he  holds,  in  entire  antithesis  to 
the  newer  Ritschlians,  that  "  the  metaphysical  only,  and  not  the  historical, 
can  give  us  blessedness  ; "  and  thinks  it  a  secondary  matter,  if  a  man  is 
actually  living  this  life  in  God,  to  ask  how  he  attained  it. — In  "  Tlie  Way 
to  the  Blessed  Life  "  (Anweisung  zum  seligen  Lehen),  pp.  471-473  (translated 
"Works"). 

This  view  of  Fichte's,  of  the  distinction  of  the  metaphysical  and  the 
historical  in  Christ,  is  that  which  runs  through  all  the  speculative  Christ- 
ologies, — those  of  Schelling,  Hegel,  Green,  etc., — and  may  be  said  to  be 
their  characteristic  feature.  In  Schelling's  later  philosophy,  however,  he 
seems  to  teach  the  incarnation  of  a  real  potence  of  the  Godhead  in 
Christ,  in  a  way  in  which  it  can  be  affirmed  of  no  other.  See  sketch  in 
Pfleiderer's  ReligiGnsphilosophiey  ii.  pp.  15-30  (Eng.  trans.). 


NOTE  M. 

MODERN  THEORY  OF  REVELATION. 

The  following  extracts  will  illustrate  the  statements  in  the  text : — 

Biedermann  says  :  "  The  division  of  Revelation  into  natural  and  su2oer- 
natural  is  ambiguous  and  uncertain  in  expression,  and  abstract  and 
figurate  as  respects  the  fact.  It  opposes  as  two  kinds  of  Revelation 
what  are  only  two  moments  of  all  Revelation,  inseparable  from  one 
another.  All  Revelation  is  essentially  supernatural,  if  under  nature  is 
understood  the  finite  natural  determinateness  of  man  in  opposition  to 
his  spiritual  destination  ;  and  all  Revelation  is  just  as  essentially  natural, 
if  under  nature  is  understood  what  lies  in  the  essence." — Christ.  Dog.  p. 
265. 

Pfleiderer  thus  sums  up  :  "  Revelation  is  every  inward  perception 
of,  and  consciousness  of  being  laid  hold  of  by  (Innewerden  und  Ergriften- 
werden),  a  supersensible  truth,  which,  because  it  does  not  originate  from 
external  communication,  or  from  arbitrary  reflection,  but  from  the  un- 
conscious and  undivided  ground  of  the  soul,  is  conceived  of  as  a  com- 
munication of  God  mediated  through  the  activity  of  the  human  soul." — 
Grundriss,  p.  20. 

H.  Schmidt  has  a  good  statement  and  criticism  of  this  theory  in  his 
article  on  "  The  Ethical  Oppositions  in  the  Present  Conflict  of  the  Biblical 
and  the  Modern  Theological  View  of  the  World,"  in  the  Studien  und 
Kritiken  for  1876  (3rd  part).      "  The   God  whom  the  Scripture  from 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  11.  461 

beginning  to  end  preaches,"  lie  says,  "is  a  God  of  supernatural  Revelation, 
who  makes  Himself  known  directly,  in  distinction  from  the  everyday 
ordering  of  our  lives ;  the  God  of  rationalism  is  a  God  who,  if  He  still  as 
really  communicates  Himself,  yet  always  remains  hidden  behind  the  laws 
of  nature,  as  behind  the  natural  course  of  the  development  of  the  human 
spirit,  who  never  manifestly  represents  Himself  to  the  eye  of  man  in  His 
exaltation  over  the  world." 


NOTE  N. 

THE   REASONABLENESS   OF   REVELATION. 

EwALD  has  said,  much  in  the  spirit  of  the  passage  quoted  from  Pfleiderer  : 
"  How,  then,  should  not  He  answer  the  earnestly  perseveringly  questioning 
spirit  of  man — He  of  whose  spirit  man's  is  but  a  luminous  reflection 
and  an  enkindled  spark,  and  to  Whom  in  his  searching  and  questioning 
he  can  draw  near  quite  otherwise  than  to  the  visible  things  of  creation." 
— Bevelation  ;  its  Nature  and  Record  (Eng.  trans,  of  first  vol.  of  Die  Lehre 
der  Bihel  von  Gott),  p.  18. 

Dr.  Walter  Morison  works  out  in  a  very  ingenious  way  the  argument 
for  the  probability  and  reasonableness  of  Eevelation  from  the  analogy  of 
nature.  Rebutting  the  objection  that  the  modern  conception  of  nature  \ 
"  is  altogether  against  the  idea  of  any  interference  by  Revelation  from 
Heaven  with  the  closely-linked  order  existing  in  nature,"  and  permits 
"  only  evolution  from  within  of  coiled  up  energies,"  he  remarks  :  "  In 
whatever  way — whether  by  evolution  or  otherwise — the  system  of  nature 
which  we  see  around  us,  and  of  which  we  are  a  part,  has  come  about, 
that  system  of  nature  supplies  no  presumption  against  there  being  a 
direct  Revelation  of  religious  truth  ;  on  the  contrary,  its  actual  testimony, 
rightly  understood,  is  in  favour  of  that  supposition.  What  may  be  called 
direct  revelation  is  found  to  be  one  of  the  common  phenomena  of  nature 
or  the  system  of  things.  As  soon  as  we  pass  into  that  region  in  our 
world  where  there  is  need  for  communication  between  individuals 
possessed  of  intelligence  in  any  degree,  we  find  '  revelation '  to  be  the 
law.  There  is  direct  utterance.  Even  the  inferior  animals  are  con- 
tinually telling  out  by  their  many  voices,  'none  of  which  is  without 
signification,'  their  various  feelings.  Wherever  there  is  what  may  be 
called  individuality,  with  power  of  feeling  and  volition,  there  utterance 
or  communication  exists  ;  it  being  part  of  the  order  of  nature  that 
there  be  connecting  bond  of  speech  between  such  as  possess  any  faculty 
for  understanding  and  fellowship.  And  when  we  ascend  in  our  ob- 
servations to  the  region  of  human  life  as  social,  we  perceive  a  corre- 
sponding development  of  the  powers  noticed  in  the  inferior  creatures. 
Everywhere  over  society  we  observe  speech  of  some  sort ;  communication  I 
in  a  direct  way  from  one  to  another ;  a  constant  immediate  revelation  of  I 
inward  thought  and  feeling  going  on.  There  is  really  nothing  more  > 
familiar  in  the  economy  of  human  life  than  this  phenomenon  of  direct 


462  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II. 

communication  from  mind  to  mind,  sometimes  by  look  and  sight,  usually 
by  words.  .  .  .  There  is  another  world,  then,  besides  this  tongueless  one 
of  inorganic  nature  !  There  is  in  the  universe  this  fact,  that  between 
individuals  capable  of  it,  direct  revelation  is  constantly  going  on.  Where 
there  are  beings  that  require  a  medium  of  intelligent  communication 
between  them,  there  we  perceive  some  sort  of  speech  to  exist.  And  hence 
it  is  not  a  suggestion  prima  facie  opposed  to  the  analogy  of  nature,  at  all 
events,  which  is  offered  when  it  is  asked  whether  there  may  not  be  some 
direct  personal  and  articulate  utterance  made  by  God  to  man.  Is  there 
to  be  eternal  silence  between  these  intelligences,  these  kindred  natures, 
with  their  mutual  capacity  for  love  and  communion  ?  Are  all  creatures 
in  the  universe  that  have  any  measure  of  intelligence,  or  are  even 
sentient,  capable  of  telling  out  directly  what  is  in  them  ;  and  have  they 
the  means  and  the  appetency  thereto  ?  Can  man  commune  with  man 
through  the  high  gift  of  language  ?  And  is  the  Infinite  Mind  and 
Heart  not  to  express  itself,  or  is  it  to  do  so  but  faintly  or  uncertainly 
through  dumb  material  symbols,  never  by  blessed  speech  ?  Is  there  no 
'  Word  of  God '  ?  To  give  a  negative  answer  here  would  be  at  least  to 
go  against  the  analogy  of  nature.  All  beings  that  we  know  possessed  of 
any  intelligence, — such  beings  generally,  we  can  at  all  events  say, — and 
especially  the  members  of  the  human  family,  speak  to  each  other  in  some 
direct  way,  make  an  immediate  revelation  of  what  is  within  them  ;  and 
one  of  the  strongest  presumptions,  surely,  is  this,  that  a  Personal  God, 
in  whose  image  man  was  made,  would,  in  His  dealings  with  man,  if 
sufficient  occasion  called,  express  Himself  in  a  similar  direct  manner  ; 
in  other  words,  give  a  Revelation  ! " — Footprints  of  the  Eevealer,  pp.  49-52. 


NOTE  0. 

THE   RITSCHLIAX   DOCTRINE   OF   REVELATION. 

The  Ritschlian  theologians  found  everything  on  positive  Revelation. 
This  is  their  distinctive  position,  and  their  merit  as  a  protest  against  a 
one-sided  intellectualism  and  idealism.  They  will  not  allow  even  of  the 
possibility  of  any  knowledge  of  God  outside  the  Revelation  of  His  grace 
in  Jesus  Christ.^  Natural  theology  and  theoretic  proofs  for  the  existence 
of  God  are  tabooed  by  them.  A  few  remarks  may  be  made  here  on  this 
theory  by  way  of  further  explanation  and  criticism. 

1.  As  regards  the  nature  of  this  Revelation,  the  Ritschlians  are  agreed 
that  it  comes  to  us  solely  through  the  self-presentation  of  Christ  in  His 
historical  manifestation.  He  is  the  only  vehicle  of  Revelation  recognised 
by  them.  It  is  not  a  Revelation  through  doctrine,  but  through  the  felt 
presence  of  God  in  Christ,  and  through  the  living  and  acting  in  which 

1  See  this  position  slightly  modifiecl  in  the  second  edition  of  Hermann's  Verkehr, 
p.  49.  Hermann's  general  views  on  Revelation  are  stated  in  his  Giessen  Lecture  on 
ner  Begrijf  der  Ofenbarung  (1887).  Kaftan  discusses  the  subject  in  his  Das  Wesen, 
etc.,  pp.  171-201. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IL  463 

Christ  exemplifies  to  us  the  right  relation  of  sonship  to  God,  and  makes 
manifest  the  character  and  purposes  of  God,  as  these  bear  on  our  salva- 
tion and  well-being. 

2.  As  regards  the  content  of  this  Revelation,  its  central  point  is  found 
in  the  design  of  God  to  found  a  kingdom  of  God  on  the  earth,  and  to 
gather  men  into  it,  and  induce  them  to  make  its  ends  their  own,  through 
the  right  knowledge  of  His  character,  and  their  acceptance  of  the  right 
relation  of  Sonship  to  Him.  All  Christ's  work— His  doing  and  dying- 
has  this  for  its  aim.  His  unity  with  God  in  His  world-purpose  i's  a 
feature  in  His  Divinity;  the  significance  of  His  death  is,  that  it 
guarantees  to  us  supremely  the  reality  of  that  religious  relation  to  God 
into  which  He  invites  us  in  His  Gospel.^ 

3.  As  regards  the  'proof  of  this  Revelation,  the  Ritschlians  are  obviously 
in  a  difiiculty,  since  proof  means  that  a  thing  is  shown  to  be  objectively 
true  (apart  from  our  subjective  thoughts  about  it),  while  yet  it  is  a 
cardinal  principle  with  them,  that  religion  moves  only  in  the  sphere  of 
value-judgments,  i.e.  judgments  on  the  relation  of  things  to  our  states  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  They  cannot,  however,  refuse  the  demand  for  proof 
that  this  which  they  present  as  Revelation  from  God  is  really  such,  and 
not  a  subjective  illusion  of  our  own  minds.    And  here — 

Fird,  and  negatively,  they  reject,  as  inappropriate  to  religion,  all 
merely  historical  evidence,  or  proof  from  objective  facts,  as  miracles,  or 
the  resurrection  of  Christ  (which  it  is  doubtful  if  most  of  them  accept  as 
objective  fact). 

Second,  and  positively,  the  proof  alleged  is  of  two  kinds  : — 

1.  Immediate  —  consisting  of  the  irresistible  impression  (Eindruck), 
which  Christ  makes  on  the  soul  historically  confronted  with  Him,  com- 
pelling the  acknowledgment  that  God  is  with  Him.  This  is  the  theme 
on  which  the  changes  are  incessantly  rung  by  Professor  Hermann  in  his 
recent  writings. 

2.  Scientific — consisting  in  showing  the  correspondence  which  exists 
between  Christianity  and  the  religious  needs  of  man,  as  these  may  be 
deduced  from  the  consideration  of  his  nature  and  history;  otherwise, 
the  agreement  of  Christianity  with  the  practical  postulates  of  religion. 
This  is  the  sort  of  proof  hinted  at  by  Ritschl  when  he  says  :  "  Its  repre- 
sentation in  theology  will,  therefore,  come  to  a  conclusion  in  the  proof, 
that  the  Christian  ideal  of  life,  and  no  other,  altogether  satisfies  the 
claims  of  the  human  spirit  to  a  knowledge  of  things  ; "  i.e.  yields  a  prac- 
tically satisfying  view  of  the  world  {Recht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  25,  3rd  ed.) ; 
and  which  is  undertaken  in  detail  by  Kaftan  in  his  Wahrheit  d.  Christ. 
Religion  (though  on  diff'erent  fundamental  lines  from  Ritschl's). 

On  this  view  I  would  offer  the  following  brief  criticisms  : — 

1.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  this  basing  of  everything  by  the  Ritschlians 

on  positive  Revelation  does  not  harmonise  well  idth  the  premises  of  the 

school. 
(1)  It  does   not  consist  well  with  their  fundamental  position  that 

religion  moves  solely  in  the  sphere  of  value-judgments.    For  if  we  really 

1  Kaftan,  however,  views  the  kingdom  of  God  as  belonging,  not  to  this  world,  but 
the  next. 


464  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IL 

get  out  to  objective  Revelation,  we  have  clearly  broken  tbrougli  this 
magic  circle  of  value-judgments,  and  are  in  the  domain  of  judgments  of 
fact  and  truth.  Or  is  our  judgment,  that  this  is  a  Divine  Revelation, 
itself  also  only  a  value-judgment  % 

(2)  The  theory  of  Revelation  does  not  consist  well  with  the  Ritschlian 
theory  of  knowledge.  For  Ritschl  is  thoroughly  at  one  with  Kant  in 
the  view  that  the  theoretic  reason  can  give  us  no  knowledge  of  God,  or 
proof  of  His  existence.  We  are  thus  driven  back  on  practical  postulates, 
or  "  Vorstellungen,"  beyond  which,  as  it  would  seem,  even  Revelation 
cannot  raise  us,  for  Revelation  cannot  take  us  outside  the  essential  limita- 
tions of  our  faculties. 

2.  It  is  to  be  observed,  further,  that  this  theory  has  no  proper  answer 
to  give  to  the  question  of  fke  nature  of  Revelation.  With  its  general 
avoidance  of  the  speculative,  it  gives  us  no  distinct  specification  of  what 
precisely  this  term  means,  or  how  much  it  is  supposed  to  cover.  Enough 
that  we  receive  from  Christ  the  impression,  that — in  some  undefined 
sense — God  is  with  Him,  and  in  Him  is  drawing  near  to  us  ;  this  is  to  us 
(subjectively)  the  Revelation,  and  nothing  else  is  of  importance.  Yet  it 
is  very  obvious,  that  multitudes  of  questions  may  arise  just  at  this  point 
as  to  the  character,  degree,  purity,  limits,  reliableness,  and  authority  of  this 
Revelation,  which  Ritschlianism  gives  us  no  help  to  answer.  We  cannot 
but  ask,  e.g.,  respecting  a  Revelation  mediated  to  us  in  this  way  through  the 
consciousness  of  another  human  being — How  did  it  originate  1  What  did 
Revelation  mean  to  Him,  the  original  recipient  %  Was  it  a  really  super- 
natural act?  or  partly  supernatural  and  partly  natural,  with  a  correspond- 
ingly mixed  result?  How  is  such  a  Revelation  even  possible,  since, 
according  to  another  part  of  the  theory,  there  is  no  direct  (mystical)  com- 
munication between  the  soul  and  God  ?  ^  Is  there  not  large  room  left  here, 
which  the  Ritschlians  {e.g.,  Wendt)  are  not  slow  to  avail  themselves  of,  for 
distinction  and  criticism  even  in  the  contents  of  Christ's  own  conscious- 
ness and  utterances  ?  Are  we  not  in  danger  of  coming  back  to  the  view, 
that  in  the  last  analysis  Christ's  religious  conceptions  do  not  differ  in 
origin  or  character  from  those  of  any  other  great  religious  genius  ? 

3.  It  is  again  to  be  observed,  that  the  character  of  this  system  compels 
it  to  limit  very  greatly  the  contents  of  the  Revelation.  Ritschlianism  is,  as 
said,  essentially  a  system  of  religious  positivism.  It  starts  with  data  of 
experience,  —  the  direct  impression  made  on  us  by  Christ,  and  the 
experimental  knowledge  we  have  of  His  power  to  give  us  deliverance 
and  freedom, — and  beyond  this  it  declines  to  go.  All  in  the  Christian 
system  which  it  regards  as  transcendental  or  metaphysical  —  however 
guaranteed  by  words  of  Christ  or  His  Apostles — it  refuses  to  inquire  into, 
or  sets  aside  as  of  no  importance  to  faith.  The  pre-existence  of  Christ, 
e.g.,  His  supernatural  birth.  His  heavenly  reign,  the  constitution  of  His 
Person,  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead,  the  eschatological  doctrines,  are  thus 
swept  aside.  It  has  no  doctrine  of  objective  Atonement,  but  only  one  of 
subjective  reconciliation.  Other  great  doctrines  of  Scripture  are  either 
absent,  or  have  a  large  part  of  their  meaning  taken  from  them. 

4.  Finally,   it    is  difficult    to  avoid  the  conclusion,  that  while  the 

1  Cf.  Hermann's  Verkehr  des  Christen  mil  Gott. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  II,  465 

members  of  this  school  profess  to  derive  their  theology  from  positive 
Eevelation,  what  really  governs  their  construction  is,  not  the  objective 
Revelation,  but  their  particular  theories  of  religion,  and  their  ideas  of  what  is 
necessary  for  the  realisation  of  man's  practical  ends.  Every  one  of  the 
members  of  this  school  has  his  theory  of  religion  independently  deter- 
mined (the  theories,  however,  widely  differing  from  each  other),  and 
agreement  with  this  theory  is  not  only  employed  for  the  proof  of  the 
Revelation,  but  is  also  the  standard,  practically,  of  what  is  accepted  or 
rejected  in  its  contents.  The  Revelation,  in  other  words,  does  not  come 
with  authority,  but  rather  derives  its  authority  from  its  agreement  with 
the  practical  postulates,  which  are  previously  established  on  quite  other 
grounds.  This  is  true  of  all  the  leading  members  of  the  party — Ritschl, 
Hermann,  Kaftan,  etc.  So  far  as  relates  to  the  proof  of  Revelation,  it  is 
not  easy  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  moving  in  a  circle.  E.g.,  in  Kaftan's 
Wahrheit,  while  the  test  of  the  truth  of  the  Revelation  is  its  agreement 
with  the  practical  postulates  above  referred  to,  these  in  turn  are  supposed 
to  be  confirmed  by  the  fact  of  the  Revelation,  and  thus  proved  to  be  no 
subjective  illusion.  I  would  not  press  this  too  far,  since  the  argument 
from  agreement  with  rational  and  moral  postulates  is  in  itself  a  sound 
one,  and  the  only  objection  that  can  be  raised  is  to  the  particular  way  of 
stating  it.^ 

1  In  Kant's  hands,  as  is  well  known,  this  method  was  employed  to  eviscerate  the 
gospel  of  all  peculiar  supernatural  content,  and  to  reduce  it  to  a  nucleus  of  moral 
notions. 


30 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    III. 


NOTE  A. 

PRIMITIVE   FETISHISM   AND   GHOST- WORSHIP. 

The  theory  of  a  gradual  ascent  in  religion  from  a  primitive  Fetishism, 
through  Polytheism  to  Monotheism,  made  familiar  by  Auguste  Comte, 
and  repeated  with  unquestioning  faith  by  writers  like  Mr.  Clodd  and  Mr. 
S.  Laing,  receives  scant  countenance  from  the  best  recent  authorities. 
Certainly,  no  case  has  been  found  in  which  it  is  possible  to  trace 
historically  such  an  evolution.  I  cite  a  few  statements  and  opinions  on 
the  subject,  and  on  the  rival  theories  of  Ghost-worship,  Totemism,  etc. 

Principal  Fairbairn,  speaking  of  this  class  of  theories  in  general,  says  : 
"  They  assume  a  theory  of  development  which  has  not  a  single  historical 
instance  to  verify  it.  Examples  are  wanted  of  people  who  have  grown, 
without  foreign  influence,  from  Atheism  into  Fetishism,  and  from  it 
through  the  intermediate  stages  into  Monotheism  ;  and  until  such 
examples  be  given,  hypotheses  claiming  to  be  'Natural  Histories  of 
Religion'  must  be  judged  hypotheses  still." — Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of 
Eeligion,  p.  12. 

Mr.  Max  Miiller,  speaking  as  an  expert,  condemns  the  theory  of  a 
primitive  Fetishism.  He  says:  "If  it  has  never  been  proved,  and 
perhaps,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  case,  can  never  be  proved,  that 
Fetishism  in  Africa,  or  elsewhere,  was  ever  in  any  sense  of  the  word  a 
primary  form  of  religion,  neither  has  it  been  shown  that  Fetishism  con- 
stituted anywhere,  whether  in  Africa  or  elsewhere,  the  whole  of  a  people's 
religion.  Though  our  knowledge  of  the  religion  of  the  negroes  is  still 
very  imperfect,  yet  I  believe  I  may  say,  that  wherever  there  has  been  an 
opportunity  of  ascertaining,  by  long  and  patient  intercourse,  the  religious 
sentiments  even  of  the  lowest  savage  tribes,  no  tribe  has  ever  been 
found  without  something  beyond  mere  worshij)  of  fetishes.  ...  I  main- 
tain that  Fetishism  was  a  corruption  of  religion  in  Africa,  as  elsewhere  ; 
that  the  negro  is  capable  of  higher  religious  ideas  than  the  worship  of 
stocks  and  stones  ;  and,  that  many  tribes  who  believe  in  fetishes,  cherish 
at  the  same  time  very  pure,  veiy  exalted,  and  very  true  sentiments  ot 
the  Deity." — Is  Fetishism  a  Primitive  Form  of  Religion  ?  Lecture  II.  p.  105 
(Hibbert  Lectures). 

In  his  more  recent   Lectures  he  reiterates  this  view  :    "  If  one  con- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  467 

siders,"  lie  says,  "  what  Fetishism  really  is,  namely,  the  very  last  stage  in 
the  downward  course  of  religion,  this  attempt  to  make  a  little-understood 
superstition  of  some  modern  negro  tribes  the  key  to  the  religion  of 
Greeks  and  Romans,  nay  of  the  most  civilised  nations  of  the  world,  is 
perfectly  marvellous."— iVaiwra^  Religion,  p.  159.  Again:  "Fetishism, 
from  its  very  nature,  cannot  be  primitive,  because  it  always  presupposes 
the  previous  growth  of  the  Divine  predicate.  As  to  the  Fetishism  of 
modern  negroes,  we  know  now  that  it  represents  the  very  lowest  stage 
which  religion  can  reach,  whether  in  Africa  or  any  other  part  of  the 
world,  and  I  know  of  no  case,  even  among  the  most  degraded  of  negro 
tribes,  w^here  remnants  of  a  higher  religious  belief  have  not  been  dis- 
covered by  the  side  of  this  degraded  belief  in  amulets,  talismans,  and 
fetishes.  The  idea  of  De  Brosses  and  his  followers,  that  Fetishism  could 
reveal  to  us  the  very  primordia  of  religious  thought,  will  remain  for 
ever  one  of  the  strangest  cases  of  self-delusion,  and  one  of  the  boldest 
anachronisms  committed  by  students  of  the  history  of  religions." — Ibid. 
pp.  219,  220. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  passes  the  same  judgment.  Repudiating  Mr. 
Harrison's  theory  of  an  original  Fetishism,  he  says  :  "  An  induction, 
based  on  over  a  hundred  examples,  warrants  me  in  saying  that  there  has 
never  existed  anywhere  such  a  religion  as  that  which  Mr.  Harrison 
ascribes  to  '  countless  millions  of  men,'  during  *  countless  centuries  of 
time.'  ...  I  have  show^n  that,  whereas  among  the  lowest  races,  such  as 
the  Juangs,  Andamanese,  Fuegians,  Australians,  Tasmanians,  and  Bush- 
men, there  is  no  Fetishism  ;  Fetishism  reaches  its  greatest  height  in 
considerably  advanced  societies,  like  those  of  ancient  Peru  and  modern 
India.  .  .  .  And  I  have  remarked  that,  had  Fetishism  been  conspicuous 
among  the  lowest  races,  and  inconspicuous  among  the  higher,  the  state- 
ment that  it  was  primordial  might  have  been  held  proved  ;  but  that,  as 
the  facts  happen  to  be  exactly  the  opposite,  the  statement  is  conclusively 
disjDroved." — Nineteenth  Century,  xvi.  pp.  8,  9. 

This  also  is  Pfleiderer's  opinion  :  "  In  presence  of  these  facts,  the 
'evolution  theory,'  as  hitherto  stated,  which  finds  the  beginnings  of 
religion  in  Fetishism  and  Animism,  appears  to  me  to  be  as  much  wanting 
in  evidence  as  it  is  psychologically  imipossible"  —  Eeligionsjohilosophie, 
iii.  p.  16  (Eng.  trans.). 

But,  then,  Mr.  Spencer's  Ghost  theory,  which  he  (and  now  also  Dr. 
Tylor)  propounds  as  a  substitute  for  that  of  a  primitive  Fetishism,  meets 
with  an  equally  decisive  rejection  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Harrison,  Max 
Miiller,  and  other  influential  waiters. 

"  I  shall  say  bat  little  about  Mr.  Spencer's  Ghost  theory,"  says  Mr. 
Harrison  ;  "  I  have  always  held  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  unlucky  of  all 
his  sociologic  doctrines,  and  that  on  psychological  as  well  as  on  historical 
grounds.  ...  It  is  certain  that  the  believers  in  the  Ghost  theory,  as  the 
origin  of  all  forms  of  religion,  are  few  and  far  between.  The  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  it  are  enormous.  Mr.  Spencer  laboriously  tries  to  persuade 
us  that  the  worship  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  arose,  not  from  man's 
reverence  for  these  great  and  beautiful  powers  of  nature,  but  solely  as 


468  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III. 

they  were  thought  to  be  the  abodes  of  the  disembodied  spirits  of  dead 
ancestors.  Animal  worship,  tree  and  plant  worship,  Fetishism,  the 
Confucian  worship  of  heaven, — all,  he  would  have  us  believe,  take  their 
origin  entirely  from  the  idea  that  these  objects  contain  the  spirits  of  the 
dead.  If  this  is  not '  persistent  thinking  along  defined  grooves,'  I  know 
not  what  it  is." — Nineteenth  Century,  xvi.  pp.  362,  363. 

Max  Mtiller  subjects  the  theory  to  an  historical  examination  in  his 
Lectures  on  Anthropological  Religion,  and  rejects  it  as  based  on  totally 
mistaken  data.  "  Granting  even,"  he  says,  "  that  there  are  races  whose 
religion  consists  of  ancestor- worship  only,  though,  as  at  present  informed, 
I  know  of  none,  would  that  prove  that  the  worship  of  nature-gods  must 
everywhere  be  traced  back  to  ancestor  worship  ?  ...  If  a  pleader  may 
tell  a  judge  that  he  has  been  misinformed  as  to  facts,  surely  we  may 
claim  the  same  privilege,  without  being  guilty  of  any  want  of  respect 
towards  a  man  who,  in  his  own  sphere,  has  done  such  excellent  work.  I 
make  no  secret  that  I  consider  the  results  of  Mr.  H.  Spencer's  one-sided 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  religion  as  worthy  of  the  strongest  condem- 
nation which  a  love  of  truth  can  dictate." — Lecture  V.  pp.  132,  133. 

See  also  the  examination  of  this  theory  in  Pfleiderer's  Religions' 
philosophie,  iii.  pp.  12-16. 

M.  Renouf  has  said  :  "If  from  pre-historic  we  pass  to  historic  times, 
we  at  once  meet  on  Egyptian  ground  with  an  entire  system  of  notions 
wonderfully  (indeed  almost  incredibly)  similar  to  those  entertained  l)y 
our  Indo-European  ancestors.  There  is,  however,  no  confirmation  of  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer's  theory,  that  the  rudimentary  form  of  all  religion  is 
the  propitiation  of  dead  ancestors.  If  the  Egyptians  passed  through 
such  a  rudimentary  form  of  religion,  they  had  already  got  beyond  it  in 
the  age  of  the  Pyramids,  for  their  most  ancient  propitiation  of  ancestors 
is  made  through  prayer  to  Anubis,  Osiris,  or  some  other  gods."— Hibbert 
Lectures,  p.  127. 

Totemisni,  or  belief  in  descent  from  animals  worshipped  as  Divine,  is 
another  phase  of  explanation  of  the  origin  of  religion  which  also  meets 
with  no  favour  from  the  authorities.  "  Totemism  is  one  of  those  pseudo- 
scientific  terms,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "which  have  done  infinite  harm  to 
the  study  of  my tholog,j. "  — Anthropological  Religion,  p.  408.  See  his 
remarks  on  it  in  this  work,  pp.  121-24  ;  and  in  Natural  Religion,  p.  159. 
A  careful  examination  of  Professor  R.  Smitli's  theory  of  Totemism,  as 
applied  to  the  Semitic  religions,  may  be  seen  in  an  article  already 
referred  to  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  April  1892  (art.  "Semitic 
Religions").  M.  Renouf  remarks  on  another  advocate  of  the  Totem 
theory  :  "Many  of  you  have  probably  read  Mr.  M'Lellan's  articles  on  the 
"  Worship  of  Animals  and  Plants."  In  order  to  show  that  the  ancient 
nations  passed  through  what  he  calls  the  Totem  stage,  which  he  says 
must  have  been  in  pre-historic  times,  he  appeals  to  the  signs  of  the 
Zodiac.  .  .  .  Mr.  M'Lellan  is  here  more  than  half  a  century  behind  his 
age,"  etc.  And  a  note  adds :  "  All  Mr.  M'Lellan's  statements  about  the 
ancient  nations  are  based  on  equally  worthless  authorities."  —  Hibbert 
Lectures,  pp.  29,  30. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  469 

Max  Miiller,  Pfleiderer,  Edville,  and  others,  reject  all  these  theories, 
and  find  the  commencement  of  religion  in  the  worship  of  the  greater 
objects  of  nature— such  as  mountains,  rivers,  the  sun,  the  sky,  etc.  But 
if  the  other  theories  begin  too  low,  does  not  this  begin  too  high,  on  the 
supposition  that  man  started  as  a  savage,  and  that  there  was  no  primitive 
Revelation  ?  May  not  the  advocate  of  Fetishism  reply,  that  man  must 
be  already  far  on  in  his  career  of  development  before  this  grander  style 
of  worship,  which  demands  a  highly  evolved  imagination,  is  possible 
to  him?  And  is  this  view  historically  supported,  any  more  than  the 
others  ?  Do  not  the  facts  point  to  a  higher  origin  for  man,  and  to  a 
purer  primitive  perception  of  the  Divine  than  these  theories  allow  ?  See 
next  Note,  and  Note  F  to  Lecture  V. 


NOTE  B. 

OLD   TESTAMENT   MONOTHEISM. 

Two  mutually  destructive  theories  are  held  by  naturalistic  critics  as  to 
the  origin  of  Hebrew  Monotheism. 

The  first  is  that  of  Eenan,  who  traces  it  to  a  "  Monotheistic  instinct ' 
said  to  be  inherent  in  the  Semitic  race.  "  The  Semitic  consciousness," 
he  says,  "  is  clear,  but  lacks  breadth ;  it  has  a  marvellous  comprehension 
of  unity,  but  cannot  grasp  multiplicity.  Monotheism  sums  it  up,  and 
explains  all  its  characters." — Hist,  gdherale  des  Langues  s^mitiques,  p.  5. 
See  this  theory  explained  in  the  work  cited,  and  in  the  more  recent 
Histoire  du  peuple  d'Israel,  I.  chap.  iv.  It  is  a  theory  which  scarcely 
requires  discussion,  so  palpably  contrary  is  it  to  all  the  facts.  Cf.  in 
regard  to  it.  Max  Miiller's  essay  on  "  Semitic  Monotheism,"  in  vol.  i.  of 
his  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop ;  Baethgen's  Beitrdge  zur  semitischen 
Reiigionsgeschichte ;  Godet's  Biblical  Studies  on  the  Old  Testament,  p.  68 
(Eng.  trans.);  and  an  able  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  (April  1888). 

The  second  theory  is  that  of  Kuenen  and  the  newer  school  of  critics 
(though  it  had  many  older  representatives),  viz.,  that  the  Israelites 
began  as  polytheists  and  idolaters  like  their  neighbours,  and  only 
gradually  attained  to  an  "  Ethical  Monotheism "  such  as  we  find  in  the 
prophets.  This  theory,  therefore,  is  the  precise  reverse  of  the  former. 
See  it  explained  in  Kuenen's  Hibbert  Lectures ;  in  Wellhausen's  Prol.  to  the 
Hist,  of  Israel  (Eng.  trans.)  ;  and  in  Professor  Robertson  Smith's  Old  Testa- 
ment in  the  J-ewish  Church,  and  Religion  of  the  Semites.  The  arguments  by 
which  it  is  supported  are  plausible,  yet,  when  carefully  looked  into,  are 
found  to  be  much  more  specious  than  solid.  The  most  sifting  examina- 
tion is  that  of  Baethgen,  in  the  work  above  cited,  Beitrdge  zur  sem. 
Reiigionsgeschichte.  See  also  Konig's  Hauptprobleme  d.  altisi'ael.  Rel. ; 
Uohertsoii' 8  Early  Religion  of  Israel  {Baird  Lectures)  ;  and  Schultz^B  Alttest. 
Theol.  pp.  159-167  (1889).  A  good  discussion  of  Hebrew  Monotheism  is 
found  also  in  Vigouroux's  La  Bible  et  les  D^couvertes  modernes,  pp.  1-86, 
"La  Religion  primitive  d'  Israel"  (1881).     Baethgen  sums  up  the  results 


470  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IIL 

of  an  exhaustive  inquiry,  first,  into  the  general  character  of  Semitic 
Polytheism  ;  and,  second,  into  the  question,  "  Whether,  as  Kuenen  and 
others  maintain,  Israel's  faith  in  God  was  really,  in  the  older  and  middle 
periods  of  its  history,  distinct  in  nothing  from  that  of  related  tribes  ? " 
in  the  following  words  : — "The  historical  investigations  of  both  parts  lead 
to  the  result,  that  Israel's  faith  in  God  was  from  the  oldest  times  speci- 
fically distinct  from  that  of  the  related  tribes  ;  and  the  contention,  that 
the  Old  Testament  Monotheism  has  originated  out  of  Polytheism,  in  the 
way  of  natural  development,  is  proved  on  closer  examination  to  be 
untenable." — Preface. 

A  strong  argument  against  the  development  theory  in  question  may 
be  drawn  from  the  results  of  the  newer  Pentateuch  criticism  itself.  It  is 
surely  a  remarkable  circumstance  that,  not  only  in  the  time  of  the 
prophets,  but  in  the  documents  J  and  E,  originating  in  the  early  days 
of  the  kings  (perhaps  earlier),  and  embodying  independently  the  oldest 
traditions  of  the  nation,  the  history  already  rests  on  a  completely 
Monotheistic  basis,  and  expresses  {e.g.  in  the  call  of  Abraham)  the  clear 
consciousness  of  the  nation's  universal  mission  and  destiny.  In  the 
documents  referred  to,  e.g..,  we  have  as  fundamental,  underlying  ideas,  the 
creation  of  the  world  by  Jehovah,  the  unity  of  the  human  family,  the 
destruction  of  the  whole  race  by  a  flood,  a  covenant  with  Noah  embracing 
the  earth,  a  new  descent  and  distribution  of  mankind  from  one  centre, 
the  recognition  of  Jehovah  as  the  God  of  all  the  earth,  etc.  Schultz,  in 
his  Alttestament.  Theologies  also  lays  weight  on  these  considerations, 
though  with  some  preliminary  qualifications  and  explanations  that  the 
Monotheism  involved  is  a  "  religious  "  and  not  a  "  metaphysical "  Mono- 
theism. "In  the  old  songs,"  he  says,  "alongside  of  the  expression, 
'who  is  like  Jehovah?'  there  stands  clearly  the  other,  'no  God  besides 
Jehovah,  no  rock  besides  our  rock'  (Ps.  xviii.  32;  1  Sam.  ii.  2). 
According  to  the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  Jehovah  has  chosen  Israel 
precisely  because  all  the  world  is  His  (Ex.  xix.  5),  therefore  not  at  all 
because  He,  as  a  particular  God,  was  bound  to  this  land  and  people. 
Psalms  such  as  the  8th,  19th,  and  29th,  praise  Him  who  has  made 
heaven  and  earth,  in  whose  holy  palace  the  sons  of  God  stand  serving. 
In  B  and  C  (the  J  and  E  of  the  ordinary  nomenclatui-e),  the  same 
Jehovah  who  is  the  covenant  God  of  Israel  is  likewise  the  Creator  of 
the  world,  the  God  of  the  patriarchs,  whom  also,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 
non-Israelites  own  as  God,  the  God  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh  (Gen.  ii.  4  ft'., 
iv.  3,  26,  xii.  17,  xxiv.  31,  50,  xxvi.  29  ;  Numb.  xvi.  22,  xxvii.  16).  He 
proves  Himself  in  His  miracles  and  in  His  majesty  the  Judge  and 
the  Destroyer,  the  world-ruler  in  Egypt,  Sodom,  and  Canaan.  In  fact, 
therefore,  the  other  Elohim  step  back  as  no-gods,  who  are  not  able  to 
determine  the  course  of  the  world.  He  alone  is  a  God  who  can  call  forth 
faith,  love,  and  trust.  He  will  reveal  His  glory  also  to  the  heathen 
world,  and  will  not  rest  till  it  fills  the  whole  earth  (Ex.  xv.  2).  .  .  .  But 
a  people,  which  itself  worships  only  one  God,  and  regards  this  God  as 
the  world-creator  and  the  controller  of  all  world- destiny,  is  for  that  reason 
monotheistic.  ...  A  God  whose  rule  is  not  bound  to  the  land  and 
people  in  which  He  is  worshipped   is   no  more  a   mere  national  God. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  471 

Thus  the  particularism  of  the  God-idea  in  Israel  has  already  become  only 
the  sheltering  husk  under  which  the  pure  Monotheism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment could  unfold  itself  and  mature."— Pp.  166,  167. 


NOTE  a 

Kegel's  idea  of  god. 


The  difficulty  in  maintaining  the  personality  ot  God  in  Hegel's  system 
is  very  manifest,  and  is  witnessed  to  by  the  history  of  his  school.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  that  with  Hegel  the  world  is  an  essential  moment  in 
the  life  of  God— a  means  to  His  self-realisation.  God  is  Absolute,  Self- 
conscious  Spirit  only  as  He  returns  to  Himself  from  His  objectification 
in  nature,  and  attains  to  self-consciousness  in  the  consciousness  of  man. 
His  self -consciousness  and  the  self-consciousness  of  man  are  thus  identical 
quantities.  But  nature  is  a  developing  process :  the  consciousness  of 
man,  too  (still  more  his  "philosophical  consciousness  of  himself  as  the 
Absolute "),  is  in  process  of  growth  —  is  finite,  partial,  and  incomplete. 
What  we  have,  therefore,  seems  to  be  a  developing  God  ;  a  God  who  only 
gradually  comes  to  the  knowledge  of  Himself  in  history.  Hegel  seeks 
to  avoid  this  by  representing  God  as  above  all  time.  The  aspect  of 
temporal  development  belongs  only  to  our  finite  consciousness  ;  for  God 
the  whole  process  is  eternally  complete.  But  this  in  turn  imperils  the 
reality  of  the  world,  and  reduces  history,  with  its  development  in  time, 
to  a  semblance.  While,  therefore,  Hegel  may  have  believed  that  in  this 
way  he  saved  the  personality  of  God— if  he  would  have  allowed  this 
term  to  be  applicable  to  the  universal  consciousness — we  cannot  admit 
that  he  really  did  so.  The  only  real  consciousness  of  God  is  that  which 
He  has  in  the  consciousness  of  finite  spirits  ;  and  this  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that  there  is  no  eternally  complete  Divine  consciousness  at  all. 
The  Neo-Hegelians  affirm  the  latter,  yet  do  not  get  over  the  difficulty 
occasioned  by  their  view  of  the  relation  of  God  and  the  world.  See  next 
Note.  On  this  ambiguity  in  Hegel's  doctrine,  see  Professor  Seth, 
Ilegelianism  and  Personality,  Lecture  V. ;  and  the  criticism  in  Dorner, 
Person  of  Christ,  v.  pp.  147-162  (Eng.  trans.). 


NOTE  D. 

DEFECTS   OF   THE   NEO-HEGELIAN   VIEW. 

An  irrefragable  part  of  this  theory,  as  represented  by  the  late  Mr.  Green 
of  Oxford,  is,  I  think,  its  fundamental  assertion  that  all  exists  in  and 
through  thought,  and  has  no  meaning  or  reality  apart  from  a  thinking 
consciousness.  But  Mr.  Green's  doctrine  of  "an  eternal  self-conscious- 
ness," reproducing  itself  in  man,  falls  yet  very  far  short  of  a  complete 


472  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  TIL 

'Theism.  I  may  be  permitted  to  quote  on  this  subject  some  remarks 
penned  by  myself  in  another  connection,  apropos  of  Professor  Veitch's 
book  on  Knovnng  and  Being  : — 

The  objections  which  Professor  Veitch  urges  are  forcibly  put  and 
powerfully  driven  home.  One  point  strongly  insisted  on  is,  the  in- 
compatibility of  this  eternal  Ego,  this  self-distinguishing  consciousness, 
with  a  true  Theism.  It  might  seem  as  if  the  opposite  were  the  case — as 
if  in  this  philosophy  the  Deity  was  reached  by  the  most  direct  road 
possible.  But  we  have  only  to  view  this  conception  of  the  eternal  Ego  a 
little  more  narrowly  to  see  how  far  it  is  from  answering  to  any  just  idea 
of  God.  Neither  activity  nor  act  can  be  predicated  of  this  Ego  ;  it  is  but 
the  still  pool  of  consciousness,  in  which  the  system  of  relations  which 
constitute  the  universe  eternally  reflect  themselves  ;  its  sole  function  is 
to  focus  these  relations,  and  collect  them  to  a  centre.  It  is  but  Kant's 
*  synthetic  unity  of  apperception'  deified.  As  nature  is  meaningless 
apart  from  this  central  Ego,  so  it,  in  turn,  has  only  significance  in  reference 
to  the  manifold  of  nature  which  it  unifies.  Nature  and  the  Ego  are  not 
two  facts,  but  one  fact  with  two  sides — object  and  subject  in  eternal 
implication.  It  is  clear,  as  Professor  Veitch  points  out,  that  the  predicates 
of  power  or  causality  cannot  apply  to  such  a  subject.  "  The  conception  of 
this  self  as  the  eternal  unity  of  the  one  and  the  many  expressly  excludes 
them.  It  never  existed  in  a  state  of  potency  or  simple  causality,  and, 
therefore,  never  could  manifest  activity  in  any  sense  we  can  attach  to  the 
term.  ...  It  is  not  an  eternal  act ;  it  is  truly,  if  it  is  anything,  an 
eternal  is.  And  this  is  simply  to  identify  it  with  the  sum  of  being  in 
the  universe,  and  to  say  that  this  is  two-sided,  one  and  many,  or  one  in 
many,  and  eternally  so.  Anything  thus  approaching  even  the  idea  of 
creation  or  creative  power  is  utterly  excluded,  whatever  sense  we  may 
attach  to  these  words.  .  .  .  The  ideas  of  creation  and  creative  activity  are 
emptied  of  meaning,  and  for  them  is  substituted  the  conception  or  fiction 
of  an  eternally  related  or  double-sided  world,  not  of  what  has  been  done, 
but  of  what  always  is.  It  is  another  form  of  the  see-saw  philosophy. 
The  eternal  self  only  is,  if  the  eternal  manifold  is,  if  the  eternal  self  is." 
—Pp.  20-22.  With  such  a  view  of  the  eternal  Ego,  it  is  difl[icult  not  to 
sympathise  with  the  remark  that  God  seems  as  dependent  on  the  world 
as  the  world  is  on  Him  ;  only  this  purely  speculative,  non-volitional 
consciousness  is  not  properly  God  at  all. 

A  yet  greater  difficulty  for  the  theory  lies  in  the  determination  of  the 
relation  of  the  eternal  consciousness  to  time  and  history.  Ex  hypothesis 
this  eternal  consciousness  is  complete.  It  undergoes  no  change,  and  can 
receive  no  increment  to  its  knowledge.  As  it  is  a  consciousness  only 
through  the  system  of  relations  which  it  unifies,  it  follows  that  these 
must  be  eternally  complete  also,  and  they  are  asserted  to  be  so.  The  one 
side  of  the  fact  must  be  there—the  world  in  its  totality,  if  the  other  is  to 
be  there— the  consciousness  which  holds  the  whole  together.  "  We  must 
hold,"  says  Mr.  Green,  "that  there  is  a  consciousness  for  which  the 
relations  of  fact  that  form  the  object  of  our  gradually  attained  knowledge, 
already  and  eternally  exist  ;  and  that  the  growing  knowledge  of  the 
individual  is  a  progress  towards  this  consciousness."— ProZ.  to  Ehics,  p.  75. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  473 

But  what,  on  this  supposition,  becomes  of  process  in  nature  ?  What  of 
development  in  time?  What  of  growth  in  the  individual?  What  of 
history  in  humanity?  Does  not  all  become  illusory?  This  is  not  a 
question  of  mere  human  apprehension.  That,  we  all  know,  is  imperfect 
and  successive.  But  the  object  itself  has  a  development,  a  history.  The 
relations  of  things  are  changing  from  moment  to  moment ;  nature  as  a 
whole  has  been  advancing  from  a  relatively  simpler  state ;  society  has 
reached  its  present  point  of  progress  through  the  long  labours  of  centuries. 
If  this  is  a  reality,  what  meaning  is  to  be  attached  to  the  statement,  that 
for  the  eternal  consciousness  "those  relations  of  fact  which  form  the 
object  of  our  gradually  attained  knowledge,  already  and  eternally  exist." 
In  an  ideal  sense  they  might ;  in  a  real  sense  they  cannot.  It  is  acknow- 
ledged that,  on  any  hypothesis,  there  is  a  difficulty  attaching  to  the  relation 
of  eternity  to  time,  and  to  the  idea  of  creation  in  time,  but  from  the 
extreme  idealistic  point  of  view  the  difficulty  seems  insuperable.  See 
further  on  this  difficulty  and  on  the  next  point  of  objection — viz.,  the 
character  of  necessity  claimed  by  this  theory  for  nature — the  remarks  in 
Lecture  IV.  pp.  147,  148. 

These  are  difficulties  attaching  to  the  relation  of  the  eternal  conscious- 
ness to  nature  ;  but  the  crowning  difficulty,  as  Professors  Veitch  and  Seth 
have  both  ably  shown,  lies  in  the  relation  of  the  eternal  consciousness  to 
the  finite  self — the  ego  of  the  individual.  On  this  extremely  critical 
point  the  representations  we  get  are  vague  and  fluctuating.  At  one  time 
the  individual  self  seems  merged  altogether  in  the  universal  self,  which 
is  described  as  "reproducing"  itself  in  the  finite  ego — making  it  the 
"  vehicle  "  of  its  own  manifestations.  "  Our  consciousness,"  we  are  told, 
"  may  either  mean  a  function  of  the  animal  organism  which  is  being  made 
gradually  a  vehicle  of  the  eternal  consciousness,  or  that  eternal  conscious- 
ness itself  as  making  the  animal  organism  its  vehicle,  and  subject  to 
certain  limitations  in  so  doing.  ...  It  consists  in  what  may  properly  be 
called  phenomena ;  in  successive  modifications  of  the  animal  organism, 
which  would  not,  it  is  true,  be  what  they  are  if  they  were  not  media  for 
the  realisation  of  an  eternal  consciousness,  but  which  are  not  this 
consciousness." — P.  ^.,  pp.  72,  73.  This  is  Pantheism,  but  Pantheism 
that  verges  very  closely  on  Materialism,  justifying  Professor  Veitch  in 
his  remark,  that  it  "  shows  what  the  whole  course  of  absolute  Idealism 
discloses,  that  it  is  identical  ultimately  with  absolute  Materialism." — P. 
238.  It  is  curious  also  how  this  same  feature  of  the  reduction  of  finite 
consciousness  to  a  mere  function  of  the  animal  organism  appears  in  the 
elaborated  Pessimistic  systems  of  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann,  which 
also,  in  their  way,  are  systems  of  absolute  Idealism.  But,  after  all,  what 
are  we  to  make  of  this  "reproduction"  of  the  eternal  consciousness  in  the 
finite  being?  " Keproduction "  is  as  vague  a  word  as  the  Platonic 
"  participation,"  and  explains  as  little.  The  eternal  consciousness  has  an 
eternally  complete  life  above  all  finite  egos  ;  again  it  "  reproduces  "  itself 
in  the  latter,  under  conditions  of  time,  succession,  ignorance,  error,  growth. 
How  are  these  two  sides  of  the  existence  of  one  and  the  self-same  subject — 
for  it  comes  to  this— to  be  brought  together  in  thought?  The  eternal 
consciousness  has  to  go  out  of  its  "timeless  unity"  in  which  it  would 


474  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III. 

have  been  complete,  and  there,  as  Professor  Veitcli  says,  "  it  practically 
breaks  down."  "  The  eternal  consciousness  in  the  only  form  we  know  it 
or  can  share  in  it,  is  baffled  by  its  own  phenomena,  its  own  relations ; 
creates  what  it  cannot  master,  spins  ropes  which  entangle  it,  or  is  con- 
stantly employed  in  weaving  a  web  which  it  never  completes."— P.  250. 
This  is  dualism  with  a  vengeance — the  same  kind  of  dualism  which  we 
meet  with  in  Hartmann's  "  Unconscious,"  on  the  one  side  all  wisdom  and 
foresiglit,  on  the  other  all  error  and  illusion. 


NOTE  E. 

KANT   AND   THE   COSMOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT. 

Kant  characterises  this  argument  as  a  perfect  "nest"  of  dialectical 
assumptions. — Kritik,  p.  427  (Eng.  trans,  p.  374).  Yet  it  might  be  shown 
that  the  objections  he  takes  to  it  depend  almost  exclusively  on  his  theory 
of  knowledge — e.g.,  that  the  mind  is  confined  to  phenomena ;  that  the 
law  of  cause  and  effect  has  no  application  except  in  the  world  of  pheno- 
mena (though  Kant  himself  applies  it  in  positing  an  action  of  things  per 
se  on  the  sensitive  subject,  and  introduces  a  "causality"  of  the  noumenal 
self,  etc.).i  The  same  remark  applies  to  the  "antinomies,"  or  self- 
contradictions  in  which  the  mind  is  said  to  involve  itself  in  every  attempt 
at  a  theoretic  application  of  the  cosmological  "  Idea."  The  "  antinomies  " 
are  rather  to  be  regarded  as  rival  alternatives  of  thought,  which,  indeed, 
are  contradictory  of  each  other,  but  which  do  not  stand  on  the  same 
footing  as  regards  admissibility.  Rather  they  are  of  such  a  nature  that 
the  mind  is  found  to  reject  one,  while  it  feels  itself  shut  up  to  accept  the 
other.  E.g.,  The  world  has  either  a  beginning  in  time  or  it  has  not. 
The  alternative  here  is  an  eternal  retrogression  of  phenomenal  causes  and 
effects,  or  the  admission  of  an  extra-phenomenal  First  Cause — God.  But 
these  do  not  stand  on  the  same  footing.  The  mind  rejects  the  former  as 
unthinkable  and  self-contradictory  (see  next  Lecture)  ;  the  latter  it  not 
only  does  not  reject,  but  feels  a  rational  satisfaction  in  admitting. 
Again,  there  is  the  antinomy  between  natural  causation  and  freedom  of 
will.  But  this  is  only  an  antinomy,  if  we  hold  that  the  law  of  causation 
applicable  to  physical  phenomena  is  the  only  kind  of  causation  we  know 
— that  there  may  not  be  rational,  intelligent  causation  over  and  above  th^ 
physical  and  determinate.  Something  here  also  depends  on  the  definition 
of  freedom. 

1  Cf.  Dr.  Stirling's  Philosophy  of  Theology,  pp.   315-316:    "The  entire  'nest' 
may  be  said  to  be  a  construction  of  bis  peculiar  system." 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  475 


NOTE  F. 

KANT   ON   THE   TELEOLOGICAL   ARGUMENT. 

Kant  says  :  "  This  proof  deserves  always  to  be  mentioned  with  respect. 
It  is  the  oldest,  clearest,  and  the  most  suited  to  the  common  reason  of 
mankind.  It  enlivens  the  study  of  nature,  even  as  it  derives  from  this 
its  own  existence,  and  draws  from  it  ever  new  strength.  It  brings  ends 
and  purposes  into  a  region  where  our  observation  would  not  of  itself  have 
discovered  them,  and  furthers  our  natural  knowledge  through  the  guid- 
ing thought  of  a  special  unity,  whose  principle  lies  outside  of  nature. 
This  knowledge  reacts  upon  its  cause,  namely,  on  the  idea  which  occasions 
it,  and  raises  faith  in  a  highest  Author  of  the  universe  to  an  irresistible 
conviction.  It  would,  therefore,  be  not  only  a  thankless,  but  also  a  vain 
task,  to  attempt  to  detract  in  any  measure  from  the  prestige  of  this 
argument."  Only,  he  goes  on  to  say:  "Although  we  have  nothing  to 
object  to  the  rationality  and  utility  of  this  procedure,  but  have  much 
rather  to  recommend  and  encourage  it,  we  are  nevertheless  unable  to  assent 
to  the  claims  which  this  mode  of  proof  may  make  to  demonstrative 
certainty,"  and  then  proceeds  to  state  his  objections  to  it. — Kritik,  p.  436, 
437  (Eng.  trans,  p.  383).^  These,  however,  as  observed  in  the  text,  seem 
more  in  the  direction  of  limiting  its  application,  than  of  altogether  deny- 
ing its  cogency.  The  view  which  obtains  in  the  Kritik  of  Judgment,  that 
the  idea  of  design  has  only  regulative  and  not  theoretic  validity,^  is  not 
dwelt  on  in  the  Kritik  of  Pure  Eeason.  It  is  not  always  noticed,  besides, 
that,  intermediate  between  full  theoretic  demonstration  and  mere  opinion, 
Kant  has  a  form  of  conviction  which  he  calls  "  doctrinal  faith," — distinct 
from  moral  faith, — the  characteristic  of  which  is  that  it  is  an  expression  of 
modesty  from  the  objective  point  of  view,  but  of  assured  confidence  from 
the  subjective  ;  and  that  he  places  the  doctrine  of  God's  existence  in  this 
region.  "  Now  we  must  concede,"  he  says,  "  that  the  doctrine  of  God's 
existence  belongs  to  doctrinal  faith.  For  although,  in  respect  of  the 
theoretical  knowledge  of  the  world,  my  procedure  does  not  necessarily  pre- 
suppose this  thought  as  condition  of  my  explanations  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  world, — much  more  am  I  under  obligation  to  use  my  reason  as  if 
all  were  mere  nature, — yet  is  teleological  unity  so  important  a  condition 
of  the  application  of  reason  to  nature  that  I  cannot  ignore  it,  since, 
besides,  experience  furnishes  me  with  abundant  examples  of  it.  But  I 
know  no  other  condition  of  this  unity  which  makes  it  a  guide  to  me  in 
my  investigation  of  nature,  than  the  presupposition  that  a  highest  intelli- 
gence has  so  ordered  all  according  to  the  wisest  ends.  Consequently,  the 
presupposition  of  a  wise  Author  of  the  world  is  the  condition  of  an  end 
which  is  contingent  indeed,  but  by  no  means  unimportant, — that  of 
having  guidance  in  my  investigation  of  nature.  Since,  also,  the  result  of 
my  attempts  confirms  so  frequently  the  utility  of  this  presupposition,  and 

1  The  references  are  to  Meiklejohn's  translation,  but  the  translations  are  in- 
dependent. 
^  Cf.  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Kant,  pp.  477,  489,  526. 


476  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III 

as  notliing  of  a  decisive  kind  can  be  adduced  on  the  other  side  against  it, 
it  would  be  saying  far  too  little  if  I  termed  my  conviction  of  its  truth  a 
mere  opinion  ;  but  it  can,  even  in  this  theoretical  relation,  be  said  that  I 
firmly  believe  in  God.  But  then  this  faith  is  not  in  the  strict  sense 
practical,  but  must  be  termed  a  doctrinal  faith,  which  the  theology  of 
nature  must  always  necessarily  produce  in  me." — Kritik,  p.  561  (Eng. 
trans,  p.  500).  Kant,  moreover,  lias  rendered  great  service  to  this  argu- 
ment by  his  demonstration,  in  the  Kritik  of  Judgment,  of  the  necessity  of 
applying  the  teleological  conception  to  nature.  See  Dr.  Bernard's  valuable 
Introduction  to  his  recent  translation  of  this  work  (1892),  and  cf. 
Professor  Caird's  Philosophy  of  Kaid,  ii.  pp.  406-562. 


NOTE  G. 

SCHOOLS   OF   EVOLUTIONISTS. 

It  is  well  to  recognise  the  fact  that  evolutionists  do  not  constitute  a 
homogeneous  party  ;  and  that  while  there  is  a  growing  disposition  to 
acknowledge  the  reality  of  Organic  Evolution,  there  is  likewise  a  growing 
tendency  to  question  the  sufficiency  of  the  causes  by  which  Mr.  Darwin 
sought  to  account  for  it. 

1.  From  the  first  there  has  been  an  important  section  of  evolutionists, 
represented  by  such  names  as  Owen,  Mivart,  Asa  Gray,  G.  H.  Lewes, 
Dana,  and  J.  J.  Murphy  (in  his  Habit  and  Intelligence),  who,  with 
differences  among  themselves,  held  that  the  rise  of  species  could  not  be 
accounted  for  by  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  of  Natural  Selection  acting  on 
fortuitous  variations.  The  tendency  in  this  school  was  to  seek  the  causes 
of  evolution  within,  rather  than  without  the  organism.  Most  of  them 
were  theistic  evolutionists — i.e.  they  held  that  the  development  of 
organisms  could  not  be  explained  without  the  assumptions  of  intelligence 
and  purpose.  Not  all  who  opposed  the  Darwinian  hypothesis  were  of 
this  class.  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes,  e.g.,  writes  :  "At  each  stage  of  differentiation 
there  has  been  a  selection,  but  we  cannot  by  any  means  say  that  this 
selection  was  determined  by  the  fact  of  its  giving  the  organism  a  superiority 
over  rivals,  inasmuch  as  during  all  the  early  stages,  while  the  organ  was 
still  in  formation,  there  could  be  no  advantage  occurring  from  it.  .  .  . 
The  sudden  appearance  of  new  organs,  not  a  trace  of  which  is  discernible 
in  the  embryo  or  adult  form  of  organisms  lower  in  the  scale — for  instance, 
the  phosphorescent  and  electric  organs — is  like  the  sudden  appearance  of 
new  instruments  in  the  social  organism,  such  as  the  printing  press  and 
the  railway,  wholly  inexplicable  on  the  theory  of  descent,  but  is  explicable 
on  the  theory  of  organic  affinity  "(!). — Physical  Basis  of  Mind,  pp.  110, 
117. 

2.  Important  differences  exist  between  Mr.  Darwin  and  his  fellow- 
worker  in  the  same  field,  Mr.  A.  Wallace,  involving  a  distinction  of 
principle  on  two  vital  points.  (1)  Mr.  Darwin's  own  views  underwent 
considerable  modifications  in  the  direction  of  recognising  that  Natural 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III.  477: 

Selection  is  not  an  all-sufficient  explanation,  and  that  more  must  be 
allowed  to  forces  interior  to  the  organism.  See  his  Descent  of  Man,  p.  61  ; 
and  cf.  Mivart's  Lessons  from  Nature,  viii.,  ix.,  and  the  articles  of 
Spencer  and  Romanes  cited  below.  He  specially  supplemented  it  by  the 
hypothesis  of  Sexual  Selection.  These  alterations  on  the  theory  Mr. 
Wallace  rejects,  repudiating  Sexual  Selection,  and  maintaining  the 
hypothesis  in  the  form  in  which  Mr.  Darwin  has  abandoned  it.  (2)  Mr. 
Darwin  held  his  theory  to  be  all-inclusive,  embracing  man  as  well  as  the 
lower  animals  ;  Mr.  Wallace  holds  that  there  are  provable  breaks  in  the 
chain  of  evolution,  and  that  man,  in  particular,  has  a  distinct  origin. 
See  next  Lecture. 

3.  Yet  more  significant  is  the  recent  tendency  to  revolt  against  the 
authority  of  Mr.  Darwin,  and  to  recognise  the  existence  of  large  classes 
of  phenomena  which  Natural  Selection  does  not  explain.  This  change  of 
front  in  recent  discussions  on  Darwinism  is  too  marked  to  escape  notice. 
I  take  one  or  two  examples  which  may  show  the  drift  of  opinion. 

Mr.  G.  J.  Romanes,  who  as  late  as  1882  wrote  a  book  on  The  Scientific 
Evidences  of  Evolution,  in  which  Mr.  Darwin's  theory  received  uncom- 
promising support,  now  writes  in  1887  :  "  The  hypothesis  of  Physiological 
Selection  (his  own  view)  sets  out  with  an  attempted  proof  of  the 
inadequacy  of  the  theory  of  Natural  Selection,  considered  as  a  theory  of 
the  origin  of  species.  This  proof  is  drawn  from  three  distinct  heads  of 
evidence— (1)  the  inutility  to  species  of  a  large  number  of  their  specific 
characters  ;  (2)  the  general  fact  of  sterility  between  allied  species,  which 
admittedly  cannot  be  explained  by  Natural  Selection,  and  therefore  has 
hitherto  never  been  explained  ;  (3)  the  swamping  influence,  upon  even 
useful  variations,  of  free  intercrossing  with  the  parent  form." — "  Physio- 
logical Selection,"  in  Nineteenth  Century,  January  1887.  The  effect  of 
Mr.  Romanes'  heresy  has  been  to  arouse  "  a  storm  of  criticism  "  from  the 
orthodox  Darwinian  party. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  published  two  papers  on  "  Factors  of  Organic 
Evolution,"  in  which,  while  still  according  an  important  place  to 
Natural  Selection,  he  very  greatly  restricts  its  field  of  action.  The  articles, 
he  says,  "  will  perhaps  help  to  show  that  it  is  as  yet  far  too  soon  to  close 
the  inquiry  concerning  the  causes  of  Organic  Evolution."— P.  75.  In  a 
subsequent  article  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  he  thus  delivers  his  soul : 
"The  new  biological  orthodoxy  behaves  just  as  the  old  biological  orthodoxy 
did.  In  the  days  before  Darwin,  those  who  occupied  themselves  with 
the  phenomena  of  life,  passed  by  with  unobservant  eyes  the  multitudinous 
facts  which  point  to  an  evolutionary  origin  for  plants  and  animals  ;  and 
they  turned  deaf  ears  to  those  who  insisted  upon  the  significance  of  these 
facts.  Now  that  they  have  come  to  believe  in  this  evolutionary  origin, 
and  have  at  the  same  time  accepted  the  hypothesis  that  Natural  Selection 
has  been  the  sole  cause  of  the  evolution,  they  are  similarly  unobservant 
of  the  multitudinous  facts  which  cannot  rationally  be  ascribed  to  that 
cause,  and  turn  deaf  ears  to  those  who  would  draw  their  attention  to 
them.  The  attitude  is  the  same  ;  it  is  only  the  creed  that  has  changed." 
— Nineteenth  Century,  February  1888. 

In  a  well- written  and  appreciative  Essay  on  Charles  Darwin  in  "  The 


478  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III. 

Eound  Table  Series,"  the  same  criticism  is  passed  upon  tlie  theory,  that 
from  the  standpoint  of  biology  too  much  stress  has  been  laid  on  Natural 
Selection.  "Natural  Selection  obviously  can  never  be  the  cause  of 
modifications  in  any  given  individual.  .  .  .  Natural  Selection  cannot 
cause  an  iota  of  modification  in  structure.  ...  In  the  case  of  Human 
Selection,  not  the  least  modification  in  an  organism  can  be  produced  by 
the  process  of  selection  itself.  The  modifications  somehow  produced  in 
the  animals  selected  are  transmitted  to  the  oft'spring ;  but  the  cause  of 
modification  lies  elsewhere  than  in  selection  ;  and  it  is  largely  due  to 
man's  own  modification  of  the  environment.  ...  It  would  undoubtedly 
have  been  better  had  Darwin  omitted  Natural  Selection  as  a  modifying 
agent  altogether."— Pp.  22-26. 

Even  Professor  Huxley  sounds  a  wavering  note  :  "  How  far  Natural 
Selection  suffices  for  the  production  of  species  remains  to  be  seen.  .  .  . 
On  the  evidence  of  palaeontology,  the  evolution  of  many  existing  forms  of 
animal  life  from  their  predecessors  is  no  longer  an  hypothesis,  but  an 
historical  fact ;  it  is  only  the  nature  of  the  physiological  factors  to  which 
that  evolution  is  due  which  is  still  open  to  discussion." — Art.  "  Evolution  " 
in  Enc\j.  Brit. 

Good  general  criticisms  of  the  Darwinian  theory  may  be  seen  in 
Mivart's  Genesis  of  Species,  Murphy's  Hahit  and  Intelligence,  Elam's  Winds 
of  Doctrine,  Bouverie  Pusey's  Permanence  and  Evolution  (1882),  Van 
Dyke's  Theism  and  Evolution,  Professor  Schurman's  Ethical  Import  of 
Darwinism,  Principal  Dawson's  Modem  Ideas  of  Evolution,  Martineau's 
Studij  of  Religion,  etc. 


NOTE  H. 

KANT  ON  THE  ONTOLOGICAL  ARGUMENT. 

Kant  holds  firmly  to  the  invalidity  of  all  inference  from  the  idea  of  God 
to  His  reality ;  but  here  also  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  he  allows  to  his 
"Ideal  of  Pure  Reason"  an  important  part  in  Natural  Theology.  If 
theoretic  reason  cannot  prove,  neither  can  it  disprove  the  objective  reality 
of  this  ideal  of  a  supreme  Being  ;  and  given  a  proof,  or  a  conviction,  from 
any  other  quarter  (from  the  Practical  Reason,  or  a  "  doctrinal  faith  "  from 
design),  it  is  of  the  highest  utility  in  correcting  and  purifying  our  con- 
ception of  this  Being.  "For,"  he  says,  "though  Reason  in  its  merely 
speculative  use  is  far  from  competent  to  so  great  an  undertaking  as  to 
reach  the  existence  of  a  supreme  Being  ;  yet  it  is  of  very  great  service  in 
correcting  the  knowledge  of  such  a  Being,  provided  this  can  be  drawn 
from  some  other  source ;  in  making  it  consistent  with  itself,  and  with 
each  intelligible  view  of  things  ;  and  in  purifying  it  from  everything 
which  would  contradict  the  notion  of  a  primary  Being,  and  from  all 
mixture  of  empirical  limitations.  .  .  .  The  supreme  Being,  therefore, 
remains  for  the  merely  speculative  use  of  Reason  a  mere  Ideal,  though 
one  free  from  error,  a  notion  which  completes  and  crowns  the  whole  of 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  III,  479 

human  knowledge,  whose  objective  reality  cannot  indeed  by  this  method 
be  proved,  but  also  cannot  be  disproved  ;  and  if  there  should  be  a  Moral 
Theology  which  can  supply  this  defect,  the  hitherto  only  problematic 
transcendental  theology  will  show  its  indispensableness  in  the  determina- 
tion of  its  notion,  and  the  unceasing  criticism  of  a  reason  often  enough 
deceived  by  sense,  and  not  always  in  agreement  with  its  own  ideas.  The 
necessity,  infinity,  unity,  existence  apart  from  the  world  (not  as  world- 
soul),  eternity  without  conditions  of  time,  omnipresence  without  conditions 
of  space,  omnipotence,  etc.,  are  pure  transcendental  predicates,  and 
therefore  the  purified  conception  of  the  same,  which  every  theology  finds 
so  necessary,  can  be  drawn  from  transcendental  theology  alone."— Zri^iA;, 
pp.  446,  447  (Eng.  trans,  pp.  392,  393). 


NOTE  I. 

RATIONAL   REALISM. 


This  argument  is  well  stated  by  Pfleiderer  in  the  following  words  :  "  The 
agreement,  therefore,"  he  says,  "  of  the  ideal  laws  of  thought,  which  are 
not  drawn  from  the  outer  world,  and  the  real  laws  of  being,  which  are 
not  created  by  our  thought,  is  a  fact  of  experience  of  the  most  incontro- 
vertible kind  ;  the  whole  certainty  of  our  knowledge  rests  on  it.  But 
how  are  we  to  account  for  this  agreement  ?  There  is  only  one  possible 
way  in  which  the  agreement  of  our  thought  with  the  being  of  the  world 
can  be  made  intelligible  :  the  presupposition  of  a  common  ground  of 
both,  in  v^hich  thought  and  being  must  be  one  ;  or  the  assumption  that 
the  real  world-ground  is  at  the  same  time  the  ideal  ground  of  our  spirit, 
hence  the  absolute  Spirit,  creative  Reason,  which  appears  in  the  world-law 
on  its  real,  in  the  law  of  thought  on  its  ideal  side.  The  connection  of 
thought  and  being,  subject  and  object,  in  the  finite  and  derivative 
spiritual  being,  points  back  to  the  unity  of  the  two  in  the  infinite  Spirit 
as  the  ground  and  original  type  of  ours.  This  is  the  meaning  of  the 
'  ontological '  argument,  as  indicated  even  in  the  word.  We  may  find  it 
anticipated  even  in  Plato,  in  the  thought  that  the  highest  idea,  or  the 
Deity,  is  the  cause  both  of  being  and  of  knowledge  ;  and  Augustine 
follows  him  in  this,  frequently  and  in  a  number  of  turns  of  thought, 
tracing  back  our  faculty  of  knowing  the  truth  to. the  fact  of  our  participa- 
tion in  God,  who  is  the  substantial  truth,  the  unchangeable  law  both  of 
the  world  and  of  our  thought.  In  modern  times  this  thought  forms 
the  foundation  and  corner-stone  of  speculative  philosophy." — Eeligions- 
2>hiloso2jhie,  iii.  p.  274  (Eng.  trans.). 

The  germs  of  this  theory  are  found  in  Leibnitz,  Herder,  Goethe,  and 
most  of  the  deeper  thinkers.  It  is  the  thought  which  underlies  Mr. 
Green's  Prolegomena  to  Ethics.  Professor  Samuel  Harris,  of  Yale  College, 
makes  it  the  ground  of  his  Philosophical  Basis  of  Theism ;  and  it  largely 
influences  current  thought. 


NOTES    TO    LECTURE    IV. 


NOTE  A. 

THE   CREATION   HISTORY. 

The  lights  and  wrongs  of  the  reconcilability  of  the  creation  narrative  in 
Gen.  i.  with  modern  science,  have  recently  been  discussed  anew  by  Mr. 
Gladstone  and  Professor  Huxley  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (vols,  xviii. 
and  xix.).  I  do  not  enter  into  this  discussion.  But  if  the  one  disputant 
imports  into  this  early  narrative  more  than  it  will  bear,  the  other  surely 
does  less  than  justice  to  it  when  he  brackets  it  "  with  the  cosmogonies 
of  other  nations,  and  especially  with  those  of  the  Egyptians  and  the 
Babylonians,"  as  essentially  of  the  same  character  with  these. 

I  content  myself  with  quoting  on  this  point  the  tribute  to  this 
ancient  narrative  by  Haeckel,  surely  an  unprejudiced  witness,  in  his 
History  of  Creation.  He  says:  "The  Mosaic  history  of  creation, 
since,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  it  forms  the  introduction  to 
the  Old  Testament,  has  enjoyed,  down  to  the  present  day,  general 
recognition  in  the  whole  Jewish  and  Christian  world  of  civilisation. 
Its  extraordinary  success  is  explained,  not  only  by  its  close  connection 
with  Jewish  and  Christian  doctrines,  but  also  by  the  simple  and 
natural  chain  of  ideas  which  runs  through  it,  and  which  contrasts 
favourably  with  the  confused  mythology  of  creation  current  among  most 
of  the  ancient  nations.  First,  God  creates  the  earth  as  an  inorganic 
body  ;  then  He  separates  light  from  darkness,  then  water  from  the  dry 
land.  Now  the  earth  has  become  habitable  for  organisms,  and  plants  are 
first  created,  animals  later  ;  and  among  the  latter  the  inhabitants  of  the 
water  and  of  the  air  first,  afterwards  the  inhabitants  of  the  dry  land. 
Finally,  God  creates  man,  the  last  of  all  organisms,  in  His  own  image, 
and  as  the  ruler  of  the  earth.  Two  great  and  fundamental  ideas, 
common  also  to  the  non-miraculous  theory  of  development,  meet  us  in 
the  Mosaic  hypothesis  of  creation  with  surprising  clearness  and  simplicity 
— the  idea  of  separation  or  differentiation,  and  the  idea  of  progressive 
development  or  perfecting.  Although  Moses  looks  upon  the  results  of  the 
great  laws  of  organic  develoj)ment  (which  we  shall  later  point  out  as  the 
necessary  conclusions  of  the  Doctrine  of  Descent)  as  the  direct  actions 
of  a  constructing  Creator,  yet  in  his  theory  there  lies  hidden  the  ruling 
idea  of  a  progressive  development  and  a  differentiation  of  the  originally 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV.  481 

simple  matter.  We  can  therefore  bestow  our  just  and  sincere  admiration 
on  the  Jewish  lawgiver's  grand  insight  into  nature,  and  his  simple  and 
natural  hypothesis  of  creation,  without  discovering  in  it  a  so-called 
Divine  Revelation."— ifisi.  of  Creation,  i.  pp.  37,  38  (Eng.  trans.). 

The  grounds  on  which  Haeckel  concludes  that  it  cannot  be  a  Divine 
Revelation  are— (1)  the  geocentric  error  that  the  earth  is  the  central 
point  in  the  universe  ;  and  (2)  the  anthropomorphic  error  that  man  is  the 
premeditated  end  of  the  creation  of  the  earth,— neither  of  which  "  errors" 
need  greatly  distress  us.  For  the  rest,  the  creation  narrative  certainly 
goes  back  on  early  tradition,i  and  is  not  a  scientific  precis,  written  in  the 
light  of  the  latest  discoveries  of  modern  geology.  Yet  it  is  possible  to 
hold  that  the  Spirit  of  Revelation  is  active  in  it,  not  merely  making  it 
the  vehicle  of  general  religious  ideas,  but  enabling  the  writer  really  to 
seize  the  great  stadia  of  the  creation  process,  and  to  represent  these  in 
such  a  way  as  to  convey  a  practically  accurate  conception  of  them  to 
men's  minds.  Modern  science  may  supplement,  it  is  astonishing  how 
little  it  requires  us  to  reverse  of,  the  ideas  we  derive  from  this  narrative 
of  the  succession  of  steps  in  creation,  assuming  that  we  deal  with  it 
fairly,  in  its  broad  and  obvious  intention,  and  not  in  a  carping  and 
pettifogging  spirit.  The  dark  watery  waste  over  which  the  Spirit 
broods  with  vivifying  power,  the  advent  of  light,  the  formation  of  an 
atmosphere  or  sky  capable  of  sustaining  the  clouds  above  it,  the  settling 
of  the  great  outlines  of  the  continents  and  seas,  the  clothing  of  the  dry 
land  with  abundant  vegetation,  the  adjustment  of  the  earth's  relation  to 
sun  and  moon  as  the  visible  rulers  of  its  day  and  night,  the  production 
of  the  great  sea  monsters  and  reptile-like  creatures  (for  these  may  well 
be  included  in  "  sheratzim ")  and  birds,  the  peopling  of  the  earth  with 
four-footed  beasts  and  cattle — last  of  all,  the  advent  of  Man — is  there 
so  much  of  all  this  which  science  requires  us  to  cancel  ?  ^  Even  in 
regard  to  the  duration  of  time  involved, — those  dies  ineffabiles  of  which 

1  Modern  criticism  would  bring  down  the  age  of  this  narrative  to  the  Exile,  and 
explain  its  origin  by  late  Babylonian  influence  ;  but  Dillmann  and  Delitzsch  have 
shown  strong  reasons  for  rejecting  this  view,  and  for  regarding  the  tradition  as  one 
of  the  oldest  possessions  of  the  Israelites. — Cf.  Delitzsch's  New  Com.  on  Oen.  pp. 
63-66  ;  and  Whitehouse  in  Introduction  to  Eng.  trans,  of  Schrader's  Keilinschri/ten, 
i.  pp.  18,  19,  on  Dillmann. 

2  The  main  objections  urged  are  such  as  these  : — 

1.  The  appearance  of  light  before  the  sun.  This,  it  seems  to  me,  is  rather  a  point 
in  favour  of  the  narrative,  for  it  is  not  an  idea  which  would  naturally  occur  to  a  mind 
simply  speculating  on  the  origin  of  things,  and  modern  knowledge  rather  tends  to 
confirm  the  narrative  on  this  point  than  to  disprove  it. 

2.  The  existence  of  an  abundant  marine  life  prior  to  the  fourth  "day."  Yet  it 
is  remarkable  that  the  first  fact  mentioned  in  the  narrative  is  the  brooding  of  the 
life-giving  Sjiirit  upon  the  waters. 

3.  The  inclusion  of  fruit-bearing  trees  in  the  vegetation  of  the  third  "day," 
whereas  these  really  appeared  much  later.  Yet  it  may  be  argued  that,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  design  of  the  narrative,  the  pictures  in  these  representations  of 
creation  are  "  completive,"  Le.  they  gather  up  into  one  concentrated  view  the  later 
as  well  as  the  initial  results  of  each  creative  act.  It  may  be  doubted,  too,  whether 
the  vegetation,  e.g.  of  the  carboniferous  period,  was  altogether  of  a  lower  kind,  and 
did  not  include  fruit-bearing  plants  "having  every  character  of  the  dicotyledons 

31 


482  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV. 

Augustine  speaks,^  —  it  is  at  least  as  difficult  to  suppose  that  only 
ordinary  days  of  twenty-four  hours  are  intended,  in  view  of  the  writer's 
express  statement  that  such  days  did  not  commence  till  the  fourth  stage 
in  creation,  as  to  believe  that  they  are  symbols.  Delitzsch  defends  the 
symbolic  interpretation  in  his  New  Commentary  on  Genesis,  p.  84  (Eng. 
trans.). 


NOTE  B. 

EVOLUTION  IN  INORGANIC  NATURE — THE  NEBULAR  HYPOTHESIS. 

This  famous  hypothesis  of  Kant  and  Laplace  is  frequently  spoken  of  as 
if  it  had  become  an  established  fact  of  science  ;  and  it  forms  an  integral 
part  in  most  sketches  of  the  process  of  cosmic  evolution  (as  in  Strauss, 
Spencer,  Clodd,  etc.).  Yet  so  far  is  it  from  being  established,  that  the 
objections  to  its  sufficiency  seem  to  multiply  and  strengthen  as  years  go 
on,  and  many  eminent  men  of  science  reject  it  altogether. 

Mr.  K.  A.  Proctor,  in  an  article  on  the  "  Meteor  Birth  of  the  Universe," 
contriT^uted  to  the  Manchester  Examiner  and  Times,  May  29,  1888,  thus 
speaks  of  it : — 

"  The  nebular  theory  of  Laplace  has  long  held  a  somewhat  anomalous 
position.  Advanced  by  its  distinguished  author  as  a  mere  hypothesis,  in 
days  when  the  word  'hypothesis'  had  still  its  proper  significance  (as 
shown  in  Newton's  saying,  *  Hypotheses  non  fingo '),  it  had  from  the 
beginning  a  fascination  for  most  minds,  which  led  to  its  acceptance  as  if 
it  had  been  a  veritable  theory.  Yet  it  has  never  been  accepted  as  a 
theory  by  one  single  student  of  science  who  has  possessed  adequate 
knowledge  of  physics,  combined  with  adequate  knowledge  of  astronomy 
and  mathematics." 

After  sketching  the  theory,  he  proceeds  :  "  The  nebulous  speculation 
of  Laplace  is  open  to  two  most  serious  objections.  In  the  first  place,  as  I 
have  already  pointed  out,  a  vaporous  mass  of  enormous  size,  and  of  the 
exceeding  tenuity  imagined,  could  not  possibly  rotate  in  a  single  mass  in 
the  manner  suggested  by  Laplace.  In  the  second  place,  some  of  the 
most  characteristic  peculiarities  of  the  solar  system  remain  altogether 
unaccounted  for  by  this  speculation,  ingeniously  though  it  accounts  for 
others." 

These  objections  are  then  developed.  Mr.  Proctor's  rival  theory  is  that 
of  "Meteoric  Aggregation."  See,  further,  his  More  Worlds  than  Ours, 
chapter  on  "  Comets  and  Meteors." 

highly  developed."  Cf.  Lyell's  Elements  of  Geology,  pp.  475,  476  {6tli  ed.).  I  do 
not  press  these  points,  but  it  is  only  fair,  when  discrepancies  are  urged,  that  they 
should  be  mentioned. 

1  "Of  what  fashion  those  days  were,"  says  Augustine,  "it  is  either  exceeding 
hard  or  altogether  impossible  to  think,  much  more  to  speak.  As  for  ordinary  days, 
we  see  they  have  neither  morning  nor  evening,  but  as  the  sun  rises  and  sets.  But 
the  first  three  days  of  all  had  no  sun,  for  that  was  made  on  the  fourth  day,"  etc.— 
De  Civitate  Dei,  xi.  6,  7.     Cf.  De  Geriesi,  ii.  14. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV.  483 

A  searching  examination  of  this  theory,  embodying  the  views  of  M. 
Babinet,  may  be  seen  in  Stallo's  Gonce^pts  of  Modern  Physics  (Inter- 
national Library),  pp.  277-286. 

Dr.  Ball,  the  Astronomer-Royal  of  Ireland,  says  regarding  it :  "  Nor 
can  it  be  ever  more  than  a  speculation  ;  it  cannot  be  established  by 
observation,  nor  can  it  be  proved  by  calculation.  It  is  merely  a  con- 
jecture, more  or  less  plausible,  but  perhaps  in  some  degree  necessarily 
true,  if  our  present  laws  of  heat,  as  we  understand  them,  admit  of  the 
extreme  application  here  required,  and  if  also  the  present  system  of 
things  has  reigned  for  sufficient  time  without  the  intervention  of  any 
influence  at  present  unknown  to  us."— TAe  Story  of  the  Heavens,  p.  506. 


NOTE  C. 

THE   HYPOTHESIS   OF  CYCLES. 

The  idea  of  an  eternal  succession  of  cycles  of  existence— of  alternating 
periods  of  dissolution  and  renovation— of  the  destruction  of  worlds, 
and  continual  birth  of  new  worlds  from  the  ruins  of  the  old— could  not 
but  present  itself  early  to  the  minds  of  speculative  thinkers  whose 
theories  did  not  admit  of  a  beginning  of  the  world  in  time.  We  find 
it  in  Brahmanism,  in  some  of  the  early  Greek  philosophies,  among  the 
Stoics,  and  it  has  been  frequently  revived  in  modern  times  as  an 
alternative  to  the  doctrine  of  creation. 

Zeller  says  of  the  Greek  Anaximander  :  "  The  assertion  which  ascribes 
to  Anaximander  an  infinity  of  successive  worlds  seems  borne  out  by  his 
system.  .  .  .  Plutarch,  indeed,  expressly  says  of  Anaximander,  that  from 
the  Infinite,  as  the  sole  cause  of  the  birth  and  destruction  of  all  things, 
he  considered  that  the  heavens  and  the  innumerable  worlds  arise  in  endless 
circulation  ;  and  Hippolytus  speaks  to  the  same  effect.  .  .  .  Cicero,  too, 
makes  mention  of  innumerable  worlds,  which  in  long  periods  of  time 
arise  and  perish  ;  and  Stobaeus  attributes  to  Anaximander  the  theory  of 
the  future  destruction  of  the  world.  .  .  .  The  same  theory  of  a  constant 
alternation  of  birth  and  destruction  in  the  universe  was  held  by 
Heraclitus,  who  approaches  more  closely  to  Anaximander  than  to  any  of 
the  ancient  Ionian  physicists,  and  also  most  probably  by  Anaximenes 
and  Diogenes.  We  have  reason,  therefore,  to  suppose  that  Anaximander 
also  held  it." — Pre-Socratic  Philosophy,  pp.  259,  260. 

This  theory  was  revived  by  Kant  in  his  Theory  of  the  Heavens  in 
1755,1  and  was  adopted  from  him  by  Strauss  (in  his  Glaubenslehre  and 
Der  alte  unci  der  neue  Glauhe,  pp.  153-160).  Vatke  and  others  also 
held  it. 

Mr.  Spencer,  with  all  his  profession  of  nescience  about  origins,  adopts 

this  theory,  as  in  reason  he  is  compelled  to  do  if  he  advocates  evolution, 

and  yet  refuses  to  admit  a  beginning  in  time.— First  Principles,  pp. 

519-537,  550,  551. 

1  Kant,  however,  held  a  beginning.     See  Strauss's  criticism  of  him  in  passage  cited. 


484  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV, 

There  is  a  fascination  and  grandeur  in  this  conception  of  endless 
cycles  of  existence, — of  new  worlds  perpetually  rising  from  the  ashes  of 
the  old, — but  it  is  a  theory  which  cannot  be  maintained. 

1.  Philosophically,  it  involves  all  the  difficulties  which,  in  discussing 
the  cosmological  argument,  we  saw  to  inhere  in  the  notion  of  an  endless 
succession  of  causes  and  effects.  This,  as  respects  the  past  (regressus  in 
infinitum),  is  a  supposition  which  is  not  simply  inconceivable,  but 
which  reason  compels  us  positively  to  reject  as  self- contradictory. 

2.  Scientifically,  it  seems  disproved  by  the  doctrine  of  the  dissipation 
of  energy,  and  of  the  tendency  of  the  material  universe  to  a  state  of  final 
equilibrium.  This  doctrine  is  stated  by  Sir  William  Thomson  (now 
Lord  Kelvin)  in  the  following  terms  : — 

"(1)  There  is  at  present  in  the  material  world  a  universal  tendency  to 
the  dissipation  of  mechanical  energy.  ^ 

"(2)  Any  restoration  of  mechanical  energy,  without  more  than  an 
equivalent  of  dissipation,  is  impossible  in  inanimate  material  processes, 
and  is  probably  never  effected  by  material  masses,  either  endowed  with 
vegetable  life,  or  subjected  to  the  will  of  an  animated  creature. 

"  (3)  Within  a  finite  past,  the  earth  must  have  been,  and  within  a  finite 
period  of  time  to  come  the  earth  must  again  be,  unfit  for  the  habitation 
of  man  as  at  present  constituted,  unless  operations  have  been,  or  are  to 
be,  performed  which  are  impossible  under  the  laws  to  which  the  known 
operations  going  on  at  present  in  the  material  world  are  subject." — Paper 
"  On  a  Universal  Tendency  in  Nature  to  the  Dissipation  of  Mechanical 
Energy,"  in  Phil  Mag.  in  Ser.  iv.  vol.  x.  p.  304  ff.  Cf.  Tait's  Recent 
Advances  in  Physical  Science,  p.  146  ;  Stewart  and  Tait's  The  Unseen  Uni- 
verse, pp.  93,  94,  126-128,  211-214  (5th  ed.) ;  and  Jevons'  Principles  of 
Science,  ii.  p.  483. 

Mr.  Spencer  himself  admits  that  as  the  outcome  of  the  processes 
everywhere  going  on,  we  are  "manifestly  progressing  towards  omni- 
present death,"  —  that  "  the  proximate  end  of  all  the  transformations 
we  have  traced,  is  a  state  of  quiescence." — First  Principles,  p.  514. 

Stewart  and  Tait  say  :  "  The  tendency  of  heat  is  towards  equalisation  ; 
heat  is  par  excellence  the  communist  of  our  universe,  and  it  will  no 
doubt  ultimately  bring  the  present  system  to  an  end." —  Unseen  Universe, 
p.  126. 

Professor  Huxley  says  :  "  Astronomy,  which  leads  us  to  contemplate 
phenomena,  the  very  nature  of  which  demonstrates  that  they  must  have 
had  a  beginning,  and  that  they  must  have  an  end,  but  the  very  nature 
of  which  also  proves  that  the  beginning  was,  to  our  conceptions  of  time, 
infinitely  remote,  and  that  the  end  is  as  immeasurably  distant." — Lay 
Sermons,  Addresses,  etc.,  p.  17  ("On  the  Advisableness  of  Improving  Natural 
Knowledge  "). 

Cf.  on  the  cycle  hypothesis,  Flint's  Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  30-35  ; 
Dorner  in  criticism  of  Vatke,  Person  of  Christ,  v.  pp.  122,  123  ;  and 
Chapman  in  criticism  of  Spencer,  Pre- Organic  Evolution,  pp.  179-190. 

1  Professor  Proctor  says  that  only  the  one  two  hundred  and  twenty-seventh  of 
the  one  millionth  of  all  the  heat  from  the  sun  reaches  any  planet ;  the  remainder 
passes  into  space  and  is  lost. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV,  485 


NOTE  D. 

"eternal  creation." 

Origen's  views  are  stated  in  his  Be  Princiinis,  Book  i.  2,  iii.  5,  etc.  In 
the  former  passage  he  argues  that  God  would  not  be  omnipotent  if  He  had 
not  eternally  creatures  on  which  to  exercise  His  power.  In  the  latter, 
he  deals  with  the  objection :  "  If  the  world  had  its  beginning  in  time, 
what  was  God  doing  before  the  world  began  ?  For  it  is  at  once  impious 
and  absurd  to  say  that  the  nature  of  God  is  inactive  and  immovable,  or 
to  sup2)ose  that  goodness  at  one  time  did  not  do  good,  and  omnipotence 
at  one  time  did  not  exercise  its  power  ; "  and  gives  for  answer  :  "  Not  then 
for  the  first  time  did  God  begin  to  work  when  He  made  this  visible  world ; 
but  as,  after  its  destruction,  there  will  be  another  world,  so  also  we  believe 
that  others  existed  before  the  present  came  into  being.  ...  By  these 
testimonies  it  is  established  both  that  there  were  ages  before  our  own, 
and  that  there  will  be  others  after  it."  —  Ante-Nicene  Library  trans, 
pp.  28,  255.  Origen's  view  of  eternal  creation  is  thus  that  of  an 
eternal  succession  of  worlds. 

That  profound  mediaeval  speculative  thinker,  John  Scotus  Erigena, 
held  the  doctrine  of  an  eternal  creation.  See  the  sketch  of  his  system 
in  Ueberweg's  Hist,  of  Phil.  i.  358-365. 

Rothe's  views  are  contained  in  his  Theologische  Ethik,  i.  sees.  40-52  (a 
special  discussion  of  the  point  in  sec.  52,  pp.  193-204,  2nd  ed.),  and  his 
Dogmatik,  pp.  138-160.  His  theory  turns  on  the  notion  that  in  positing 
his  I,  God  must  also,  by  a  necessity  of  thought,  posit  his  not- 1,  which 
is  identified  by  him  with  pure  matter,  and  is  the  product  of  an  eternal 
act.  This  is  the  act  of  creation  proper,  and  is  beginningless  ;  and  from 
it  is  to  be  distinguished  the  world,  which  is  the  product  of  finite  develop- 
ment, and  has  its  existence  in  space  and  time — has  therefore  a  beginning 
in  time.  "  What  has  been  created  in  time,"  he  says,  "  that  has  naturally 
a  beginning  ;  but  as  undoubtedly  has  that  which  was  created  when  there 
was  not  time,  no  beginning.  For  a  beginning  can  only  be  spoken  of 
where  there  is  time.  The  world  is  consequently  in  no  way  without 
beginning  (as  little  in  a  spatial  as  in  a  temporal  reference),  and  nothing 
belonging  to  the  world  is."—Theol  Ethik,  pp.  198,  199. 

Rothe's  pure  matter  is  almost  identified  by  him  with  space  and  time. 

The  idea  of  a  beginning  of  God's  creative  activity,  Schleiermacher 
thinks,  places  Him  as  a  temporal  being  in  the  domain  of  change. — Der 
Christ.  Glauhe,  i.  pp.  200,  201. 

The  views  of  Lipsius  may  be  seen  in  his  Dogmatik,  pp.  292,  293.  "It 
is  only  a  sensuous  representation,"  he  says,  "  to  lead  back  creation  upon 
a  single  act  now  lying  in  the  past,  or  to  speak  of  a  'first  beginning'  of 
creation  ;  rather  is  the  total  world-development,  so  soon  as  it  is  viewed 
religiously,  to  be  placed  under  the  notion  of  creation,  consequently  to  be 
regarded  as  without  beginning  or  end."— P.  293. 

Dorner  solves  the  problem  by  the  supposition  of  a  temporal  world 
standing  midway  between  two  eternal  ones.     "  Just,  therefore,"  he  says, 


486  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV. 

"  as  we  have  no  right  to  say  that  this  law  of  succession,  and  this  progress 
from  imperfect  to  perfect,  must  continue  for  ever  ...  so  also  we  have 
no  right  to  say  that  this  world,  tangible  to  sense  and  subject  to  tem- 
porality, cannot  have  been  preceded  by  a  world  of  pure  spirits  (although 
spirits  not  yet  subject  to  laws  of  historical  progress),  which  are  with- 
drawn in  the  first  instance  from  all  relation  of  succession,  and  exist  in 
the  simultaneity  of  all  their  constituent  elements,  and  in  this  character 
surround  the  throne  of  God, — a  kingdom  of  which  it  cannot  be  said  that 
a  time  was  when  it  was  not,  not  merely  because  no  time  was  ere  it  was, 
but  also  because  for  it  there  was  no  time,  no  succession  or  becoming. 
This  world  can  only  be  brought  under  the  standpoint  of  time  by 
reference  to  the  succeeding  world.  From  this  point  of  view  it  appears 
a  preceding  one,  already  belonging  to  the  past.  Thus,  midway  between 
the  eternal  world  of  the  end,  in  which  temporal  existence  merges,  and 
the  world  of  the  beginning  standing  in  the  light  of  eternity,  may  lie, 
like  an  island  in  a  broad  ocean,  the  present  world  bound  to  temporal 
existence." — System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  p.  33  (Eng.  trans.). 

Lotze  teaches  "  that  the  '  will  to  create '  is  an  absolutely  eternal  predi- 
cate of  God,  and  ought  not  to  be  used  to  designate  a  deed  of  His,  so 
much  as  the  absolute  dependence  of  the  world  upon  His  will,  in  contra- 
distinction to  its  involuntary  'emanation'  from  His  nature." — Outlines  of 
the  Phil,  of  Religion,  p.  74  (Eng.  trans.). 

The  authors  of  The  Unseen  Universe  hold  that  the  present  visible  universe, 
which  had  a  beginning  and  will  have  an  end,  is  developed  out  of  an 
unseen  and  eternal  one.  "We  are  led,"  they  say,  "not  only  to  regard 
the  invisible  universe  as  having  existed  before  the  present  one,  but  the 
same  principle  drives  us  to  acknowledge  its  existence  in  some  form  as 
a  universe  from  all  eternity." — Unseen  Universe,  p.  215  ;  cf.  pp.  94,  95. 

The  theory  of  an  eternal  creation  is  contested,  on  the  other  hand,  by 
Van  Gosterzee  {Dogmatics,  pp.  303,  304,  Eng.  trans.),  Gretillat  (Theologie 
Sijstematique,  iii.  392-397),  Miiller  {Christ  Doct.  of  Sin,  i.  pp.  224-227, 
Eng.  trans.),  etc. 

The  diflEiculties  which  attach  to  such  theories  as  Eothe's  and  Dorner's, 
which  only  shift  the  problem  from  the  absolute  beginning  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  temporal  developing  world,  are  pointed  out  by  Miiller 
in  his  criticism  of  the  former :  "  Do  not  the  difficulties  supposed  to  be 
involved  in  a  beginning  of  the  world  return  now  as  really  insoluble, 
because,  while  denying  its  beginning,  we  have  to  allow  the  fact  of  its 
eternal  creation,  and  to  believe  that  God,  having  left  it  as  it  was  for  a 
limitless  period,  barely  existing  as  materia  hruta,  at  length  began  at  some 
definite  time  to  think  of  it  and  ordain  it,  i.e.,  to  begin  to  develop  it 
towards  the  goal  of  its  becoming  spirit.  .  .  .  And  if  the  beginning  of 
the  world  involves  a  transition  from  non-creation  to  creation  incon- 
sistent with  God's  unchangeableness,  have  we  not  here  also  a  transition 
on  God's  part  from  inactivity  to  action  equally  inadmissible,  because  in 
this  case  God's  Kevelation  of  Himself  in  outward  activity  becomes  a 
necessity  of  His  nature  ?  "—Christ.  Doct.  of  Sin,  p.  226  (Eng.  trans.). 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV,  487 


NOTE  E. 

ETERNITY  AND   TIME. 

This  difficult  problem  has  exercised  the  minds  of  thinkers  in  all  ages. 

Augustine  has  profound  thoughts  on  the  subject  in  his  Be  Civitate  Dei, 
"  For  if  eternity  and  time  be  well  considered,"  he  says,  "  time  never  to 
be  extant  without  motion,  and  eternity  to  admit  no  change,  who  would 
not  see  that  time  could  not  have  being  before  some  movable  thing  were 
created  1  .  .  .  Seeing,  therefore,  that  God,  whose  eternity  alters  not, 
created  the  world  and  time,  how  can  He  be  said  to  have  created  the 
world  in  time,  unless  you  will  say  there  was  something  created  before 
the  world  whose  course  time  did  follow  ?  .  .  .  Then,  verily,  the  world 
was  made  with  time  and  not  in  time  (mundus  non  in  tempore  sed  cum 
tempore  factus  est),  for  that  which  is  made  in  time  is  made  both  before 
some  time  and  after  some.  Before  it  is  time  past ;  after  it  is  time  to 
come ;  but  no  time  passed  before  the  world,  because  no  creature  was 
made  by  whose  course  it  might  pass." — Book  xi.  6.^ 

Kothe  goes  deeply  into  the  question  in  his  Theologische  Ethik,  i.  pp. 
193-204  (2nd  ed.) ;  and  Lotze  discusses  it  with  suggestiveness  and 
subtlety  in  his  Microcosmos,  ii.  pp.  708-713. 

The  following  remarks  in  Dorner  are  in  consonance  with  a  suggestion 
in  the  text :  "  When,  therefore,  the  world  comes  into  actual  existence, 
actual  time  comes  into  existence.  The  actual  world  is  preceded  by 
merely  possible  time  ;  of  course,  not  in  a  temporal  sense,  else  must  time 
have  existed  before  time,  but  in  a  logical  sense.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  actual  time,  merely  possible  time  can  only  be  mentally  repre- 
sented under  the  image  of  the  past ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  eternal 
world-idea,  and  God's  eternity  in  relation  to  the  world's  actual  existence." 
— System  of  Doctrine,  ii.  p.  30  (Eng.  trans.). 

Dr.  Hutcheson  Stirling  has  also  his  thoughts  on  this  difficulty.  "  It 
is  easy,"  he  says,  "  to  use  the  words,  the  predicates  that  describe  what 
we  conceive  to  be  eternal ;  as,  for  example,  in  the  terms  of  Plato  to  say 
that  the  eternal,  '  what  is  always  unmoved,  the  same,  can  become  by  time 
neither  older  nor  younger,  nor  has  been  made,  nor  appears  now,  nor  will 
be  in  the  future,  nor  can  any  of  those  things  at  all  attach  to  it  which 
mortal  birth  has  grafted  on  the  things  of  sense ; '  but  how  to  bring  into 
connection  with  this  everlasting  rest  the  never-resting  movement  of 
time— that  is  the  difficulty."  I  confess  that  his  suggestion  that  "time 
may  be  no  straight  line,  as  we  are  apt  to  figure  it,  but  a  curve— a  curve 
that  eventually  returns  into  itself,"  does  not  seem  to  me  greatly  to  relieve 
the  difficulty.— P/ii7.  and  Theol  p.  105. 

1  Augustine,  however,  in  these  remarks  does  little  more  than  reproduce  Plato  in 
the  Timeus.    See  the  striking  passage,  Jowett's  Plato,  iii.  p.  620  (2na  ed.). 


488  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV. 


NOTE  F. 

MAN   THE   HEAD   OF   CREATION. 

This  thouglit  of  man  as  the  crown  and  masterpiece  of  creation— tlie 
goal  of  its  developments — finds  the  most  varied  expression  in  writers  of 
different  schools.     I  cite  a  few  illustrative  instances. 

Kant  finds  man  to  be  "  not  merely  like  all  organised  beings,  an  end 
of  nature,  but  also  here  on  earth  the  last  end  of  nature,  in  reference  to 
whom  all  other  natural  things  constitute  a  system  of  ends." — Kritik  d. 
Urtheilskraft,  p.  280  (Erd.  ed.). 

It  is  the  key-thought  of  Herder's  Ideen  zur  Philosophie  der  Geschichtej 
that  man  is  the  connecting  link  between  two  worlds  ;  on  the  one  hand, 
the  highest  of  nature's  products,  crowning  its  ascent  from  i^lant  to 
animal,  and  from  lower  to  higher  grades  of  animal  life,  till  finally  it 
rests  in  him ;  and,  on  the  other,  the  starting-point  of  a  new  order  of 
spiritual  existences.  "  All  is  bound  together  in  nature ;  one  condition 
strives  towards  another,  and  prepares  the  way  for  it.  If,  therefore,  man 
closes  the  chain  of  terrestrial  organisations  as  its  highest  and  last  mem- 
ber, he  likewise  begins,  just  on  that  account,  the  chain  of  a  higher 
order  of  creatures,  as  the  lowest  member  of  it ;  and  thus  is  probably 
the  middle-link  between  two  systems  of  creation,  intimately  connected 
with  each  other." — Ideen,  Bk.  v.  6. 

It  is  virtually  Herder's  thought  which  Dr.  H.  Stirling  reproduces 
when  he  says:  "There  is  a  rise  from  object  to  object.  The  plant  is 
above  the  stone,  and  the  animal  above  the  plant.  But  man  is  the  most 
perfect  result.  His  supremacy  is  assured.  He  alone  of  all  living 
creatures  is  erect ;  and  he  is  erect  by  reason  of  the  Divinity  within  him 
whose  office  it  is  to  know,  to  think,  and  to  consider.  All  other  animals 
are  but  incomplete,  imperfect,  dwarf,  beside  man." — Phil  and  Theol. 
p.  137. 

That  man  is  the  apex  of  the  evolutionary  movement  is,  of  course, 
recognised  by  all,  though  not  necessarily  with  acknowledgment  of  final 
cause.  Professor  Huxley,  in  his  Man^s  Place  in  Nature,  says  :  "  In  view 
of  the  intimate  relations  between  man  and  the  rest  of  the  living  world, 
and  between  the  forces  exerted  by  the  latter  and  all  other  forces,  I  can 
see  no  excuse  for  doubting  that  all  are  co-ordinated  forms  of  Nature's 
great  progression  from  the  formless  to  the  formed,  from  the  inorganic  to 
the  organic,  from  blind  force  to  conscious  intellect  and  will "  (p.  108) ; 
and  Professor  Tyndall,  in  his  Belfast  Address,  describing  how  in  the 
primates  the  evolution  of  intellect  and  the  evolution  of  tactual  append- 
ages go  hand  in  hand,  says  :  "  Man  crowns  the  edifice  here."  And  Mr. 
"Wallace  regards  man  as  not  only  placed  "apart,  as  the  head  and 
culminating  point  of  the  grand  series  of  organic  nature,  but  as  in  some 
degree  a  new  order  of  being."— iVa^.  Selection,  pp.  351,  352. 

Mr.  Fiske  may  be  quoted,  who  says  suggestively  :  "  The  doctrine  of 
evolution,  by  exhibiting  the  development  of  the  highest  spiritual 
human  qualities  as  the  goal  toward  which  God's  creative  work  has  from 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV.  489 

,  ihe  outset  been  tending,  replaces  Man  in  his  old  position  of  headship  in 
the  universe,  even  as  in  the  days  of  Dante  and  Thomas  Aquinas.  That 
which  the  pre-Copernican  astronomy  naively  thought  to  do  by  placing 
the  home  of  Man  in  the  centre  of  the  physical  universe,  the  Darwinian 
biology  profoundly  accomplishes  by  exhibiting  Man  as  the  terminal  fact 
in  that  stupendous  process  of  evolution  whereby  things  have  come  to 
be  what  they  are.  In  the  deepest  sense  it  is  as  true  as  it  ever  was  held 
to  be,  that  the  world  was  made  for  Man,  and  that  the  bringing  forth  in 
him  of  those  qualities  which  we  call  highest  and  holiest  is  the  final  cause 
of  creation." — Idea  of  God,  Introd.  pp.  20,  21.  Gf.  also  the  chapters  on 
"  Man's  Place  in  Nature  as  affected  by  Darwinism,"  and  "  On  the  Earth 
there  will  never  be  a  Higher  Creature  than  Man  "  in  his  Man's  Destiny 
(1890). 

I  quote  further  only  the  following  sentences  from  Kaftan  :  "The  end 
of  nature,  of  its  history  and  its  development,  can  be  sought  only  in 
humanity,  in  the  fact  that  '  man  is  the  crown  of  the  creation.^  We  men 
can  find  or  discover  nothing  in  the  whole  world  environing  us  which 
can  be  put  in  comparison  with  man  and  his  spiritual  life,  still  less  which 
surpasses  him.  .  .  .  We  must  on  this  account  form  the  idea  of  an  end 
of  the  natural  development,  and  then  what  scientific  knowledge  ofi'ers  in 
particulars  advances  to  meet  this  thought.  For  this  idea  would  have  no 
support  if  it  were  not  upheld  by  the  conviction  of  an  end  pertaining  to 
man  and  to  his  history.  That  the  development  of  the  natural  world  has 
its  end  in  man,  becomes  a  rational  thought,  first  of  all,  when  I  can  speak 
in  turn  of  an  end  to  which  the  world  of  humanity  itself  has  regard." — 
TVahrheit,  etc.,  p.  418. 


NOTE  G. 

MIND   AND   MECHANICAL   CAUSATION. 

It  is  well  to  see  clearly  what  this  "  gradual  banishment  from  all  regions 
of  human  thought  of  what  we  call  spirit  and  spontaneity,"  which  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  speaks  of  ("On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life"),  involves; 
and  the  matter  could  not  be  much  better  put  than  it  is  by  Mr.  Kennedy 
in  his  Donnellan  Lectures  on  Natural  Theology  and  Modern  Thought.  He 
calls  attention  to  the  way  in  which  this  theory  must,  if  true,  affect  our 
belief  about  the  agency  of  God  and  the  agency  of  the  mind  of  man. 
"  For  the  latter,  the  agency  of  the  human  mind,"  he  says,  "  it  leaves  no 
room  whatever.  It  tells  us  that  in  attributing  the  railways  and  steam- 
ships and  cotton-mills  of  the  present  day  to  the  fertile  mind  of  man,  we 
have  been  making  a  mistake  as  great  as  that  of  the  insane  astronomer  in 
Swift's  satire,  who  had  persuaded  himself  that  it  was  his  watchful  care 
which  guided  the  movement  of  the  planets.  The  railways,  steamships, 
and  cotton-mills  would  have  been  constructed  all  the  same,  though  we 
had  no  minds  at  all ;  just  as  the  stars  would  have  remained  in  their  proper 
places,  though  the  attention  of  the  astronomer  had  been  withdrawn  from 


490  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV, 

them.  It  was  the  boast  of  Corate,  that  to  minds  familiarised  with  the 
true  astronomical  philosophy,  the  heavens  now  declare  no  other  glory 
than  that  of  Hipparchus,  Kepler,  Newton,  and  all  those  who  have  con- 
tributed to  the  ascertainment  of  their  laws  ;  but  if  the  doctrine  of 
Automatism  be  true,  it  is  the  direct  contrary  of  this  which  results  ;  it  is 
the  glory  of  Hipparchus,  Newton,  and  Kepler  which  is  irretrievably 
destroyed.  For  the  mind  of  Hipparchus  was  not  the  agent  which  made 
known  to  man  the  Precession  of  the  Equinoxes  ;  nor  were  the  thoughts 
of  Newton  the  cause  of  the  writing  of  the  Principia ;  nor  did  those  of 
Kepler  cause  the  enunciation,  either  by  pen  or  voice,  of  the  laws  which 
bear  his  name.  These  philosophers  were  merely  conscious  automata ; 
and  had  they  been  unconscious  automata,  the  result  would  still  have 
been  the  very  same"  (pp.  75,  76).  This  is  no  travesty  of  the  doctrine,  but 
a  serious  presentation  of  the  results  of  the  views  advocated  by  Professor 
Huxley  in  his  i^aper,  "  The  Hypothesis  that  Animals  are  Automata " 
{Fortnighthj  Review,  November  1874,  pp.  575,  576).  "  It  seems  to  me," 
says  this  distinguished  scientific  teacher,  "that  in  men,  as  in  brutes, 
there  is  no  proof  that  any  state  of  consciousness  is  the  cause  of 
change  in  the  motion  of  the  matter  of  the  organism.  If  these  positions 
are  well  based,  it  follows  that  our  mental  conditions  are  simply  the 
symbols  in  consciousness  of  the  changes  which  take  place  automatically 
in  the  organism  ;  and  that,  to  take  an  extreme  illustration,  the  feeling 
we  call  volition  is  not  the  cause  of  a  voluntary  act,  but  the  symbol  of 
that  state  of  the  brain  which  is  the  immediate  cause  of  that  act.  We 
are  conscious  automata,"  etc.  It  is  difficult  to  see  what  place  is  left  for 
virtue  or  responsibility  in  such  a  theory  of  man  as  this  ! 


NOTE  H. 

MIND   AND   CEREBRAL   ACTIVITY. 

This  subject  is  discussed  with  great  care  in  Professor  H.  Calderwood's 
The  Relations  of  Mind  and  Brain,  with  the  result  that  a  series  of  facts  are 
established  which  I  do  not  remember  seeing  brought  out  as  convincingly 
anywhere  else.  The  chief  value  of  his  book  lies  in  the  proof  which  it 
leads  of  the  following  positions,  which  I  set  here  in  order,  with  reference 
to  passages  in  which  they  are  discussed  : — 

1.  That  the  primary  function  of  the  brain  is  to  serve,  not  as  an  organ 
of  thought,  but  as  an  organ  of  sensory-motor  activity  (pp.  196, 290, 302-307, 
2nd  ed.). 

2.  That,  as  demonstrated  by  experiment,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
brain — if  not  all — is  monopolised  for  sensory-motor  work,  leaving  little, 
if  any,  of  it  to  be  employed  for  other  purposes  (pp.  302,  361). 

3.  That  in  the  comparison  of  animals  there  is  no  fixed  ratio  between 
degree  of  intelligence  and  complexity  of  brain  structure — a  highly  de- 
veloped and  convoluted  brain  finding  its  chief  explanation  in  "  the 
much  more  complex  muscular  system  to  be  controlled"  (p.   149).     "Ad- 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV,  491 

vance  in  intelligence  and  advance  in  complexity  of  brain  structure  do 
not  keep  pace  with  each  other,  they  are  not  correlated  so  as  to  harmonise  " 
(p.  148).  The  dog,  e.g.,  with  a  brain  less  elaborate  in  its  convolutions, 
shows  a  higher  degree  of  intelligence  than  the  horse,  with  a  more  ample 
and  complicated  series  of  foldings  on  the  convolutions  of  the  grey 
matter.  A  number  of  leading  cases  are  examined  in  detail  in  Chap.  v. 
"Comparison  of  the  Structure  and  Functions  of  Brain  in  Lower  and 
Higher  Forms  of  Animal  Life  "  (pp.  123  if.).     Cf.  pp.  260,  261. 

4.  That  the  view  that  special  cells  are  appropriated  to  mental  functions, 
—as,  e.g.,  the  "  mind-cells  "  of  Haeckel  (pp.  298-303),  or  the  memory-cells 
of  Professor  Bain  (pp.  356-364),— is  not  borne  out,  but  is  discredited  by 
physiology.  As  against  Haeckel,  it  presents  "  a  cumulative  body  of  evi- 
dence adverse  to  the  hypothesis  that  human  intelligence  can  be  attributed 
to  the  giant  pyramidal  cells  abounding  in  the  fourth  layer  of  the  brain. 
All  available  evidence  favours  the  conclusion  that  these  giant  cells  are 
motor  cells  largely  concerned  in  the  functions  of  co-ordination  of  related 
intra-cerebral  movements.  It  thus  seems  warrantable  to  infer  that  such 
co-ordinated  movement  takes  rank  as  the  highest  function  of  brain.  In 
accordance  with  this  view  is  Dr.  Ferrier's  conclusion  as  to  the  frontal 
regions  in  the  human  brain,  based  on  the  whole  range  of  experiments 
under  electro-motor  excitation,  "that  they  are  'inhibitory  motor-centres' 
such  as  may  be  associated  with  an  exercise  of  attention  "  (pp.  302,  303).  As 
respects  Bain's  theory,  "the  known  laws  of  cerebral  activity  do  not 
favour  such  calculations  as  are  suggested  by  Professor  Bain.  The  space 
appropriated  for  the  sensory  and  motor  functions  includes  a  great  part 
of  the  mass  of  cellular  tissue  "  (p.  360,  see  proof  in  detail).  Generally, 
"  physiology  does  not  discover  any  new  function  in  the  higher  part  of 
the  system,  except  more  detailed  ordination  "  (p.  297).  "  We  must  regard 
equally  the  frontal  and  the  occipital  regions  of  the  grand  central  organ 
as  concerned  with  sensory  -  activity  and  correlated  motor  -  activity  " 
(p.  316). 

5.  That  the  true  relation  of  mind  and  brain  lies  in  the  dependence 
of  the  former  on  the  latter  in  sensory  functions,  and  in  the  use  made  by 
the  former  (involved  in  all  forms  of  mental  activity)  of  the  brain's  motor 
functions.  The  following  is  an  enumeration  of  forms  of  brain  action  which 
must  be  considered  as  generally  attending  on  the  more  ordinary  mental 
exercises  :  "(1)  Action  of  the  special  senses,  and  of  the  more  general  tac- 
tile sense  ;  (2)  action  of  the  muscles  concerned  in  the  management  of 
these  senses,  and  specially  of  the  organs  of  sight ;  (3)  co-ordination  of 
sensory  and  motor  apparatus  required  for  use  of  the  senses ;  (4)  action 
of  sensory  centres  consequent  on  use  of  imagination  (p.  357),  in  j)art  a 
renewal  of  sensory  impressions,  or  a  movement  of  sensory  cells  conse- 
quent upon  stimulus  which  imagination  supplies  ;  (5)  sensory  and  motor 
action  consequent  upon  the  stimulus  coming  from  mental  emotion,  such 
as  weeping,  facial  expression  of  sadness  or  sympathy  ...  all  these  phases 
of  brain  action,  as  they  involve  active  use  of  brain  energy,  imply  trans- 
formation of  energy,  consequent  waste  of  brain  substance,  and  inevitable 
sense  of  exhaustion.  .  .  .  First,  there  is  large  use  of  both  sensory  and 
motor  apparatus  in  connection  with  all  the  ordinary  forms  of  intellectual 


492  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV. 

activity.  Second,  all  thought  proceeds,  to  a  large  extent,  by  use  of 
language,  and  thus  seems  to  involve  activity  of  the  cells  concerned 
with  the  acquisition  and  use  of  language  and  speech.  Third,  con- 
centrated thought  makes  a  severer  demand  upon  all  the  forms  of 
brain  action  connected  with  ordinary  thought,  and  so  quickens  and 
increases  the  exhaustion  of  nerve  energy  "(pp.  412-415).  This  defines 
the  sense  in  which  the  brain  is  the  organ  of  mind,  and  shows  that  it 
is  not  the  organ  of  mind  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  is  a  sensory- 
motor  organ  (p.  315). 

6.  That  while  the  mind  is  thus  manifoldly  correlated  with  brain  action, 
not  only  are  mental-facts,  as  the  highest  authorities  admit,  absolutely 
distinguishable  from  brain-facts  (pp.  292,  293,  314,  315);  but  the  mental 
phenomena  in  man  (even  in  sensation  and  consciousness  of  succession  in 
sensations,  in  memory,  language,  still  more  in  the  higher  mental  func- 
tions, self-regulated  voluntary  activity,  intellectual  activities,  thought  on 
ultimate  questions  of  existence,  etc.)  transcend  brain  action  altogether, 
and  are  non-interpretable  through  it  (pp.  304-307,  366,  367,  385-396  ; 
chap.  XV.  "  The  Higher  Forms  of  Mental  Activity  ").  "  Mind  transcends 
all  the  sensibilities  of  our  organism.  The  whole  range  of  our  thoughts, 
— as  we  interpret  events  under  the  law  of  causality,  form  conceptions  of 
rectitude,  and  represent  to  ourselves  a  scheme  of  the  universe  as  a  whole 
— transcends  all  the  functions  of  the  nerve  system.  Known  facts  are  in 
accordance  with  this  duality ;  paralysis  of  a  cerebral  hemisphere  may 
leave  intelligence  unaffected  ;  though  high  intellectual  life  involves  good 
brain  development,  high  brain  development  does  not  necessarily  involve 
a  distinguished  intellectual  life ;  but  the  more  highly  educated  a  man 
is,  so  much  the  more  does  his  life  transcend  what  his  bodily  functions 
can  accomplish"  (p.  317). 

The  result  reached  is — "  that  the  intelligence  of  man,  as  known  in 
personal  consciousness,  is  of  a  nature  entirely  distinct  from  sensory 
apparatus,  its  functions  being  incapable  of  explanation  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  of  sensory  activity.  .  .  .  The  facts  of  consciousness  lead  to 
the  conclusion  that  mind  is  a  distinct  order  of  existence,  different  in 
nature  from  the  nerve  system,  differing  in  the  mode  of  its  action  from 
the  mechanical  action  of  sensory  apparatus,  and  capable  of  interpreting 
the  rational  sensibilities  of  our  organism,  so  as  thereby  to  discover  a 
rational  order  in  things  external,  or  adaptation  of  related  things  in  nature 
to  rational  purpose  "  (p.  307). 

In  establishing  these  positions,  Professor  Calderwood  at  the  same  time 
refutes  certain  others,  viz.  : — 

1.  The  theory  which  identifies  mind  with  brain  action  (pp.  313,  314). 

2.  The  theory  which  supposes  that  there  is  an  exact  correspond- 
ence between  the  mental  and  physical  facts, — or  that,  as  Bain  and 
Spencer  put  it,  they  are  but  two  sides  of  the  same  thing  (pp. 
293-296).  "  That  there  is  an  absolute  harmony  involving  a  parallelism 
or  correspondence,  and  making  an  exact  equation  of  both  organic 
and  non-organic  activity  in  all  cases,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  maintain  " 
(p.  316). 

3.  The  theory  that  mental  phenomena   can   be    translated  into  the 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV.  493 

language  of  brain  changes,  or  expressed  in  terms  of  the  motions,  group- 
ings,  or  electric  discharges  of  the  latter  (pp.  314,  315). 

4.  The  view  that  mind  does  not  act  on  the  brain  series  to  alter  or 
modify  it—"  that  action  and  reaction  of  nerve  tissue  carries  the  explana- 
tion of  all  that  belongs  to  human  life  "  (pp.  326-343).  "  It  was  inevitable 
that  a  theory  reducing  all  human  action  to  the  play  of  nerve  force  should 
be  propounded"  (p.  336);  but  "(1)  There  is  neither  anatomical  nor 
physiological  evidence  in  support  of  the  theory.  .  .  .  (3)  The  facts  relied 
on  as  auxiliary  to  the  theory  do  not  in  reality  support  it.  .  .  .  (4)  The 
facts  to  be  explained — voluntary  control  of  muscular  activity  under 
guidance  of  intelligence— do  not  manifest  resemblance  to  the  known 
facts  of  nerve  action,  but  present  a  decided  contrast "  (pp.  328,  329). 


NOTE  I. 

SCHLEIERMACHER   AND   IMMORTALITY. 

In  his  earlier  writings  Schleiermacher  undoubtedly  speaks  slightingly 
of  personal  immortality,  and  Dr.  Martineau  enlarges  on  this  as  if  it  were 
his  whole  view. — Study  of  Religion,  ii.  pp.  355-360.  But  in  his  Der 
christliche  Glaube  he  takes  much  more  positive  ground.  In  Sec.  157  he 
distinguishes  between  "  propositions  of  faith  "  and  "  propositions  received 
on  testimony,"  which,  though  their  truth  is  not  directly  deducible  from 
the  contents  of  the  Christian  consciousness,  are  yet  so  intimately  bound 
up  with  the  credit  of  Christ  and  His  witnesses,  that  we  cannot  refuse  to 
accej)t  them.  Such,  e.g.,  is  the  resurrection  of  Christ  Himself,  which,  as 
shown  in  an  earlier  section  (sec.  99),  is  not  directly  involved  in  faith,  but 
yet  is  to  be  received  on  testimony.  It  is  not  otherwise,  in  Schleier- 
macher's  view,  with  immortality.  Here  also  he  takes  the  ground  that 
personal  immortality  is  not  a  doctrine  so  bound  up  with  faith  that  a  man 
cannot  conceivably  be  a  Christian,  and  yet  deny  it.  For  if  there  is  an 
irreligious  denial  of  personal  immortality,  there  may  also,  he  holds,  be  a 
denial  of  it  springing  from  a  worthy  and  indeed  a  religious  motive.  "  If, 
therefore,"  he  says,  "  any  one  in  good  faith  should  maintain  that  Christ's 
words  on  this  subject  are  to  be  taken  figuratively,  and  not  in  their  strict 
sense,  and  on  this  account  should  not  attribute  personal  immortality  to 
himself,  faith  in  Christ,  as  such  an  one  conceives  of  Him,  certainly  re- 
mains possible  ; "  though,  as  he  proceeds  to  explain,  it  would  involve  a 
complete  transformation  of  Christianity  if  such  a  mode  of  interpretation 
should  ever  be  established  in  the  Church,  or  should  be  laid  at  the 
foundation  of  Christian  faith  (sec.  157,  2).  But  this  is  a  purely 
hypothetical  case.  For  in  these  consequences  to  Christianity,  says 
Schleiermacher,  "  it  is  already  implied  that  we  do  not  presuppose  that 
such  an  interpretation  can  be  made  in  good  faith."  It  can  be  maintained 
"  that  faith  in  the  continuance  of  our  personality  is  bound  up  with  faith 
in  the  Redeemer"  (ibid.).  He  rejects  all  the  natural  arguments  for  im- 
mortality (sec.  158.  1),  but  he  thinks  it  indubitable  that  Christ  Himself 


494  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IV, 

taught  His  own  immortality,  and  that  of  believers  as  united  with  Him 
in  fellowship  of  life  ;  and  this  conviction  is  therefore  given  to  us  as 
part  of  our  faith  in  Christ  (sec.  158,  2).  It  must,  however,  be  admitted 
that  this  is  an  exceedingly  weak  ground  on  which  to  rest  so  weighty  an 
article  of  faith  ;  for  assuredly  faith  will  not  long  retain  a  doctrine  for 
which  it  experiences  no  religious  need,  and  which  finds  no  support  in 
the  facts  of  human  nature. 


NOTES    TO    LECTUKE    V. 


NOTE  A. 

DEFECTS   IN   CREATION  :   AN   ARGUMENT   AGAINST   THEISM. 

Lucretius  already  uses  this  argument.  Even  were  he  ignorant,  he 
says,  of  the  primordial  causes  of  things,  he  could  venture  to  afl&rm 
from  the  faultiness  of  the  universe  that  it  was  not  the  work  of 
Divine  power. 

"  Quod  si  jam  rerum  ignorem  primordia  quae  sint, 
Hoc  tamen  ex  ipsis  cseli  rationibus  ausim 
Confirmare  aliisque  ex  rebus  reddere  multis, 
Nequaquam  nobis  divinitus  esse  paratam 
Naturam  rerum ;  tanta  stat  prsedita  culpa." 

— De  Rerum  Natura,  v.  195-199. 

Seneca  held  a  view  akin  to  Mill's. ^  Among  his  queries  are  these  : 
"  How  far  God's  power  extends  ?  Whether  He  forms  His  own  matter,  or 
only  uses  that  which  is  given  Him  ?  Whether  He  can  do  whatsoever  He 
will  1  or  the  materials  in  many  ways  frustrate  and  disappoint  Him,  and 
things  are  formed  badly  by  the  great  Artificer,  not  because  His  art  fails, 
but  because  that  on  which  it  is  exercised  proves  stubborn  and  intractable." 
Qucest.  Nat,  Book  i.  Preface. 

Mr.  Rathbone  Greg  seems  in  the  end  of  his  life  to  have  come  round  to 
the  views  of  Mr.  Mill.  "  Thoughtful  minds  in  all  ages,"  he  says,  "  have 
experienced  the  most  painful  perplexities  in  the  attempt  to  reconcile  certain 
of  the  moral  and  physical  phenomena  we  see  around  us  with  the  assump- 
tion of  a  Supreme  Being  at  once  all- wise,  all-good,  and  almighty."  These 
difficulties,  he  thinks,  are  wholly  gratuitous,  and  arise  out  of  the  incon- 
siderate and  unwarranted  use  of  a  single  word — omnipotent.  Only  grant 
that  the  Creator  is  "  conditioned, — hampered,  it  may  be,  by  the  attributes, 
qualities,  and  imperfections  of  the  material  on  which  He  had  to  operate  ; 
bound  possibly  by  laws  or  properties  inherent  in  the  nature  of  that 
material,'' — and  "  it  becomes  possible  to  believe  in  and  to  worship  God 
without  doing  violence  to  our  moral  sense,  or  denying  or  distorting  the 

1  Mill's  views  are  indicated  in  the  text.  They  are  further  discussed  by  me  in  two 
})apers  in  The  Theological  Monthly  (July  and  August  1891)  on  "J.  S.  Mill  and 
Christianity." 


496  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V, 

sorrowful  facts  that  surround  our  daily  life." — Preface  to  Enigmas  of  Life 
(18th  edition). 

The  Pessimists,  of  course,  lay  stress  on  what  they  consider  the  evil 
and  defects  of  nature,  as  proving  that  it  cannot  have  proceeded  from  an 
intelligent  cause.  Hartmann  is  quoted  by  Strauss  as  saying  that  "  if 
God,  before  creation,  had  possessed  consciousness,  creation  would  have 
been  an  inexpiable  crime  ;  its  existence  is  only  pardonable  as  the  result 
of  blind  will." — Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube,  p.  223. 

Comte  and  Helmholtz  have  urged  the  defects  of  nature  as  disproving 
design.  See  their  views  criticised  in  Flint's  Theism,  Lect.  viii.  ;  Janet's 
Final  Causes,  p.  45  (Eng.  trans.) ;  Kennedy's  Nat.  Theol.  and  Modern 
Thought,  pp.  130-134  ;  Eow's  Christian  Theism,  chap.  ix.  etc. 

Mr.  S.  Laing  urges  the  undeniable  existence  of  evil  in  the  world  as  a 
fact  irreconcilable  with  that  of  an  almighty  and  beneficent  Creator, 
and  takes  refuge  in  an  ultimate  law  of  "  polarity,"  i.e.  dualism. — A 
Modern  Zoroastrian,  pp.  170-183  (see  next  note). 

Maudsley  writes  :  "  The  facts  of  organic  and  human  nature,  when  ob- 
served frankly  and  judged  without  bias,  do  not  warrant  the  argument  of 
a  supreme  and  beneficent  artificer  working  after  methods  of  human 
intelligence,  but  perfect  in  all  his  works  ;  rather  would  they  warrant,  if 
viewed  from  the  human  standpoint,  the  conception  of  an  almighty 
malignant  power  that  was  working  out  some  far-off  end  of  its  own,  with 
the  serenest  disregard  of  the  suffering,  expenditure,  and  waste  which 
were  entailed  in  the  process." — Body  and  Will,  pp.  180,  181. 

There  is  much  that  is  exaggerated,  jaundiced,  and  subjective  in  these 
complaints,  but  they  point  to  the  existence  of  great  and  terrible  evils  in 
the  world,  which  Theism  must  boldly  face,  and  do  justice  to  in  some  way 
in  its  view  of  the  world. 


NOTE  B. 

DUALISTIC  THEORIES  OF  THE   ORIGIN   OF  EVIL. 

The  hypothesis  of  two  principles  in  the  universe  finds  classical  expression 
in  the  Zoroastrian  religion.  Cf.  on  this  Ebrard's  Christian  Apologetics,  ii. 
pp.  186-232.  Mr.  S.  Laing  makes  an  attempt  at  a  revival  of  the  theory 
in  his  book,  A  Modern  Zoroastrian,  under  the  name  of  "  a  law  of  polarity." 
He  would  have  us  "  devote  ourselves  with  a  whole  heart  and  sincere  mind 
to  the  worship  of  the  good  principle,  without  paltering  with  our  moral 
nature  by  professing  to  love  and  adore  a  Being  who  is  the  author  of  all 
the  evil  and  misery  in  the  world  as  well  as  of  the  good  ; "  and  holds  that 
a  great  deal  of  what  is  best  in  Christianity  "  resolves  itself  very  much 
into  the  worship  of  Jesus  as  the  Ormuzd,  or  personification  of  the  good 
principle,  and  determination  to  try  to  follow  His  example  and  do  His 
work"  (pp.  179,  180). 

There  is  a  deceptive  simplicity  in  this  idea  of  dividing  oft'  the  good 
and  evil  of  the  world  into  different  departments,  giving  all  the  good  to 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  497 

a  good  principle,  and  all  the  evil  to  an  evil  principle,  which  may  impose 
for  a  moment  on  the  mind,  yet  the  slightest  reflection  should  suffice  to 
show  the  crudencss  and  untenableness  of  the  hypothesis. 

1.  In  respect  of  physical  evil,  no  such  sharp  division  into  good  and  evil 
is  possible.  Eather  the  terms  are  relative,  and  what  is  good  in  one  rela- 
tion is  evil  in  another.  Good  and  evil  are  often  simply  questions  of 
degree  ;  the  susceptibility  to  pleasure  is  involved  in  the  susceptibility  to 
pain,  and  vice  versa.  Thus  the  same  nerve  which  feels  pleasure  feels 
pain  ;  the  one  susceptibility  is  involved  in  the  other.  Pleasure  and  pain 
shade  into  each  other  by  insensible  gradations.  If,  e.g.,  I  approach  my 
hands  to  the  fire,  I  feel  a  grateful  warmth  ;  if  I  bring  them  nearer,  I 
am  scorched.  It  is  the  same  sun  which  fructifies  the  fields  in  one  part 
of  the  world,  and  burns  up  the  herbage  or  smites  with  sunstroke  in 
another.  On  the  hypothesis  in  question,  the  sun's  heat  would  belong  in 
the  one  case  to  the  good,  in  the  other  to  the  evil  principle  ;  so  with  the 
fire,  etc. 

2.  In  respect  of  moral  evil,  a  self-subsisting  evil  principle  is  an  im- 
possible abstraction.  Moral  evil  is  a  term  which  has  no  meaning  except 
in  relation  to  character  and  will ;  and  a  character  or  will  cannot  be  evil, 
unless  along  with  the  evil  there  is  some  knowledge  of  the  good.^ 
Natural  forces,  as  heat  and  electricity,  are  neither  good  nor  evil,  for  there 
is  no  knowledge.  Bound  up,  therefore,  with  the  evil  principle,  there 
must  be  some  knowledge  of  the  good,  else  it  would  not  be  evil.  But  a 
principle  which  participates  in  the  knowledge  of  the  good  cannot  be 
originally  or  essentially  evil,  but  can  only  have  become  such  through 
its  own  choice.  Evil,  in  other  words,  has  no  reality,  save  as  the  negation 
or  antithesis  of  the  good,  which  is  its  necessary  presupposition.  Abs- 
tracted from  knowledge  of  the  good,  the  so-called  evil  principle  sinks 
to  the  rank  of  a  mere  nature  principle,  of  which  neither  good  nor  evil 
can  properly  be  predicated.  This  is  ultimately  the  reason  why  in 
dualistic  systems  natural  and  moral  evil  always  tend  to  be  confounded. 


NOTE  C. 

hegel's  doctrine  of  sin. 

Hegel's    view,   as   stated    in  his  ReligionspMlosophie,   may  be    briefly 
summed  up  thus  :  — 

1.  Evil  exists  by  a  metaphysical  necessity.  "  The  notion  must  realise 
itself.  .  .  .  Man  is  essentially  spirit ;  but  spirit  does  not  arise  in  an 
immediate  way.  It  is  essential  to  spirit  to  be  for  itself,  to  be  free,  to 
oppose  itself  to  naturalness,  to  raise  itself  out  of  its  state  of  immersion 
in  nature,  to  set  itself  at  variance  with  nature,  and  first  through  and  by 
this  variance  to  reconcile  itself  with  nature,  and  not  only  with  nature, 
but  with  its  own  essence,  with  its  truth."— Vol.  i.  p.  268. 

1  "By  its  very  essence,"  says  Mr.  Bradley,  "immorality  cannot  exist  except  as 
against  morality;  a  purely  immoral  being  is  a  downright  im\)0ssi\iility."— Ethical 
JSiudies,  p.  210. 

32 


498  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V. 

%  As  respects  his  original  condition,  man  exists  first  in  a  state  ot  pure 
naturalness.  It  is  hardly  correctly  named  even  a  state  of  innocence,  for 
innocence  implies  moral  ideas,  whereas  this  is  a  state  "  in  which  there  is 
for  man  neither  good  nor  evil ;  it  is  the  state  of  the  animal,  of  lack  of 
knowledge,  in  which  man  knows  nothing  of  either  good  or  evil,  in 
which  what  he  wills  is  not  determined  either  as  the  one  or  the  other  ; 
for  if  he  does  not  know  evil,  neither  does  he  know  good.  ...  In  truth, 
that  first  state  of  mere  existence  in  unity  with  nature  is  not  a  condition 
of  innocence,  but  of  rudeness,  of  appetite,  of  barbarism  generally." — Vol. 
i.  p.  269. 

3.  As  respects  man's  essential  nature  in  this  state,  two  opposite  defini- 
tions are  to  be  given — Man  is  by  nature  good  ;  and  man  is  by  nature 
bad.  To  affirm  "that  man  is  by  nature  good,  is  essentially  to  say  that 
man  is  spirit  in  himself,  is  rationality  ;  he  is  created  with  and  after  the 
image  of  God.  .  .  .  The  other  statement  arises  from  what  has  been  said, 
that  man  raust  not  remain  as  he  is  immediately,  but  must  transcend  his 
immediateness.  .  .  .  His  being-in-self,  his  naturality  is  the  evil.  ...  He 
is  evil  for  this  reason,  that  he  is  a  natural  being.  .  .  .  The  absolute 
demand  is  that  man  shall  not  remain  as  a  mere  natural  being, — not  as 
mere  natural  will.  Man  has  indeed  consciousness  ;  but  he  can,  even  as 
man,  remain  a  mere  natural  being,  in  so  far  as  he  makes  the  natural  the 
aim,  content,  and  determination  of  his  will." — Vol.  ii.  pp.  258-260. 

4,  That  through  which  the  transition  is  effected  from  the  natural  to 
the  moral  state  is  hnoioledge.  With  the  awakening  of  consciousness, 
man  recognises  that  he  is  not  what  he  ought  to  be ;  hence  arises  the 
sense  of  sin,  the  pain  of  discord,  of  contradiction  with  himself.  As  the 
l^ible  has  it,  man  becomes  evil  by  eating  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  "  In 
this  representation  lies  the  connection  of  evil  with  knowledge.     This  is 

an  essential  point Man's  nature  is  not  what  it  should  be,  and  it  is 

knowledge  which  acq[uaints  him  with  this  and  sets  before  him  the  fact 
of,  his  being  as  he  ought  not  to  be.  .  .  .  It  is  not  that  consideration 
(knowledge)  has  an  external  relation  to  evil,  but  the  consideration  itself 
is  the  evil.  Man,  since  he  is  spirit,  has  to  proceed  to  this  opposition,  in 
order  to  be  altogether  for  himself,"  etc. — Vol.  ii.  pp.  263-265. 

It  is  the  annulling  of  this  self-diremption  in  man — represented  as  an 
essential  stage  in  his  development  —  which  constitutes,  according  to 
Hegel,  the  atonement. 


NOTE  D. 

ritschl's  doctrine  of  guilt. 


See  a  searching  examination  of  Ritschl's  doctrine  on  this  subject  in 
Dorner's  System  of  Doctrine,  iv.  pp.  60-72  (Eug.  trans.).  Of.  also 
Pfleiderer's  Die  RitschVsche  Theologiey  pp.  63,  69,  70 ;  Bertrand's  Une 
nouvelle  Conception  de  la  Redemption,  pp.  256-273  ;  Sttihlin's  Kant,  Lotze, 
and  Ritschl,  pp.  210-212,  226. 

All  these  writers  agree  that  the  logical  effect  of  Ritschl's  doctrine  is 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  499 

to  reduce  guilt  to  a  subjective  illusion.     This  is  borne  out  by  the  follow- 
ing particulars  of  his  system  : — 

1.  By  the  denial  to  God  of  everything  of  the  nature  of  punitive  jus- 
tice. In  so  far  as  the  sinner's  guilty  fears  lead  him  to  represent  God  as 
angry  with  him,  or  as  visiting  him  with  punishment,  he  is  tormenting 
himself  with  needless  apprehensions.  Punitive  justice  is  a  conception 
borrowed  from  the  sphere  of  civil  right,  and  has  no  application  in 
the  sphere  of  the  Divine.  He  teaches  expressly  that  "external  evils 
can  only  be  reckoned  as  Divine  punishments  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  subjective  consciousness  of  guilt." — Eecht.  und  Ver.  iii.  p.  346. 

2.  By  his  doctrine  of  reconciliation.  Reconciliation  is  defined  as  the 
removal  of  the  separation  which  has  come  to  exist  between  man  and  God 
in  consequence  of  sin  ;  and  as  it  is  the  consciousness  of  guilt  which  keeps 
sinners  far  from  God,  pardon  consists  essentially  in  the  removal  of  this 
guilt-consciousness  (iii.  p.  52).  But  this  is  not  to  be  understood  as  if  in 
tliis  removal  of  guilt  anytliing  objective  took  place.  Rather  Christ's 
work  was,  as  Dorner  expresses  it,  "  to  reveal  God  to  us  as  fatherly  love, 
and  scatter  the  gloomy  terrors  of  an  angry  God  and  a  punitive  justice  ;" 
"  to  give  deliverance  from  these  erroneous  notions  of  God's  retributive 
and  specially  punitive  justice,  which  interfere  with  Divine  communion." 
— System  of  Doctrine,  iv.  p.  71. 

3.  The  doctrine  of  guilt  is  attenuated  on  another  side  by  Ritschl's 
view  that  all  existing  sin  is  sin  committed  in  ignorance.  It  is  on  this 
ground  that  he  declares  it  pardonable.  But  here  again  pardon  does  not 
mean  the  laying  aside  of  any  real  displeasure  on  the  part  of  God,  but 
solely  the  removal  of  the  sinner's  (groundless)  guilty  fears.  The  one 
sin  which  Ritschl  exempts  from  pardon  is  that  of  definitive  unbelief— a 
problematical  transgression  which  he  thinks  we  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
ever  existed.  Here  Ritschl's  doctrine  falls  into  an  obvious  inconsistency. 
He  holds  that  if  such  a  sin  did  exist,  the  one  way  the  Divine  Being 
could  deal  with  it  would  be  by  annihilating  the  sinner.  But  surely 
this  would  be  an  exercise  of  punitive  justice,  if  anything  is  ;  yet  Ritschl 
denies  that  punitive  justice  resides  at  all  in  God.  On  the  whole,  there 
is  good  ground  for  Dorner's  charge,  that  "no  clear,  connected  doctrine 
respecting  punishment,  God's  punitive  justice,  moral  freedom,  and  guilt, 
is  to  be  found  in  Ritschl "  (iv.  p.  67). 


NOTE  E. 

ALLEGED   PRIMITIVE   SAVAGERY   OF   MANKIND. 

The  hypothesis  of  man's  original  savagery  rests  on  certain  unproved 
assumptions. 

I.  So  far  as  it  is  a  deduction  from  the  law  of  evolution,  it  rests  on 
the' unproved  assumption  that  man  has  developed  by  slow  gradations 
from  the  condition  of  the  animal.  See  on  this  the  passages  quoted  in 
footnote  to  the  Lecture,  p.  213. 


500 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V, 


II.  As  respects  existing  savages,  the  hypothesis — 

1.  Rests  on  the  improved  assumption  that  the  state  of  existing  savages 
represents  (or  most  nearly  represents)  that  of  primitive  nian.^  Of  late, 
says  Max  Miiller,  there  has  been  a  strong  reaction  in  the  study  of  un- 
civilised races.  "  First  of  all,  it  has  been  shown  that  it  was  certainly 
a  mistake  to  look  upon  the  manners  and  customs,  the  legends  and  re- 
ligious ideas  of  uncivilised  tribes  as  representing  an  image  of  what  the 
primitive  state  of  mankind  must  have  been  thousands  of  years  ago,  or 
what  it  actually  was  long  before  the  beginning  of  the  earliest  civilisation, 
as  known  to  us  from  historical  documents.  The  more  savage  a  tribe,  the 
more  accurately  was  it  supposed  to  reflect  the  primitive  state  of  man- 
kind. This  was  no  doubt  a  very  natural  mistake,  before  more  careful 
researches  had  shown  that  the  customs  of  savage  races  were  often  far 
more  artificial  and  complicated  than  they  appeared  at  first,  and  that 
there  had  been  as  much  progression  and  retrogression  in  their  historical 
development  as  in  that  of  more  civilised  races.  We  know  now  that 
savage  and  primitive  are  very  far  indeed  from  meaning  the  same  thing." 
— Anthrop.  Religion,  pp.  149,  150. 

Evidence  is  constantly  accumulating  that  behind  the  existing  condition 
of  savage  races,  there  stood  a  state  of  higher  culture  and  civilisation. 
E.g. ,  Dr.  Tylor  says :  "  Dr.  Bastian  has  lately  visited  New  Zealand  and 
the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  gathered  some  interesting  information  as  to 
native  traditions.  The  documents  strengthen  the  view  which  for  years 
has  been  growing  up  among  anthropologists  as  to  the  civilisation  of  the 
Polynesians.  It  is  true  that  tliey  were  found  in  Captain  Cook's  time 
living  in  a  barbaric  state,  and  their  scanty  clothing  and  want  of  metals 
led  superior  observers  to  class  them  as  savages  ;  but  their  beliefs  and 
customs  show  plainly  traces  of  descent  from  ancestors  who  in  some  way 
shared  the  higher  culture  of  the  Asiatic  nations." — Nature,  1881,  p.  29. 
Tylor's  own  pages  furnish  ample  evidence  of  similar  retrogression  of  the 
African  and  other  tribes. — Primitive  Culture,  pp.  42,  43.  On  the  earlier 
extinct  civilisations  of  Mexico  and  Peru,  the  mound-builders  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  and  other  evidences  of  earlier  culture  in  America,  see 
Reville's  Hibbert  Lectures,  1884,  TJie  Native  Religions  of  Mexico  and 
Peru;  Dawson's  Fossil  Men  and  their  Modern  Representatives;  Argyll's 
Unity  of  Nature,  pp.  429-437. 

A  fact  of  the  greatest  importance  here  is  that  pointed  out  by  the  Duke 
of  Argyll,  viz.,  that  the  degraded  races  of  the  world  are  those  farthest 
from  the  centres  of  distribution  of  population.  "  It  is  a  fact,"  he  says, 
"  that  the  lowest  and  rudest  tribes  in  the  population  of  the  globe  have 
been  found,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  farthest  extremities  of  its  larger 
continents,  or  in  the  distant  islands  of  its  great  oceans,  or  among  the  hills 
and  forests  which  in  every  land  have  been  the  last  refuge  of  tlie  victims 
of  violence  and  misfortune." —  Unity  of  Nature,  p.  426.  See  for  illustra 
tion,  chap.  x.  of  this  work. 

Whately's  statement  stands  yet  unoverturned.     "Facts,"  he  says,  "a 
stubborn  things  ;  and  that  no  authenticated  instance  can  be  produced  o 
^  Of  course,  from  the  evolutionist  point  of  view,  even  savage  life,  as  Tylor  point 

out,  would  be  "a  far  advanced  condition."— Prm.  Cnlture,  i.  p.  33. 


lis 

] 

its 

d 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  501 

savages  that  ever  did  emerge  unaided  from  that  state  is  no  theory,  but 
a  statement,  hitherto  never  disproved,  of  a  matter  of  /ocf."— Exeter  Hall 
Lecture  on  the  Origin  of  Civilisation. 

2.  It  overlooks  the  higher  elements  which  exist  even  in  the  present 
condition  of  savages.  See  these  brought  out,  as  respects  the  African  tribes, 
on  the  basis  of  Waltz's  AnthrojJology,  in  Max  MilUer's  Hibbert  Lectures, 
1878,  On  the  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  pp.  106-113. 

III.  As  respects  prehistoric  man,  the  main  points  are  noticed  in  the 
Lectures. 

1.  Here,  again,  the  assumption  is  unproved  that  these  cave-men,  etc., 
on  whose  rudeness  the  argument  is  founded,  represented  primitive  man, 
and  were  not  rather  a  degradation  of  an  earlier  type.  Against  this 
assumption  is  the  fact  of  their  distance  from  what  seem  to  have  been 
the  original  centres  of  distribution  of  the  race,  combined  with  the  very- 
different  spectacle  which  mankind  presents  as  we  approach  these  centres. 
On  the  argument  based  on  the  antiquity  of  prehistoric  man,  see  Note  G, 
and  cf.  Reusch's  Nature  and  the  Bible,  ii.  pp.  265-366  (Eng.  trans.). 

2.  Many  erroneous  inferences  may  be  drawn  from  stone  implements 
and  the  like  as  to  the  intellectual  and  moral  calibre  of  the  people  using 
them.  See  on  this  the  most  suggestive  treatment  in  Sir  Arthur  Mitchell's 
lihind  Lectures  on  "  Past  and  Present,"  and  "  What  is  Civilisation  ? "  (1876 
and  1878). 

3.  The  greatest  civilisations  of  antiquity  do  not  show  traces  of  an 
earlier  period  of  barbarism.  These  civilisations  certainly  did  not 
spring  into  existence  ready-formed,  but  there  is  nothing  to  indicate 
any  such  slow  rise  from  an  antecedent  state  of  savagery  as  the 
modern  hypothesis  supposes.  This  is  pecViliarly  the  case  with  the 
oldest  civilisation — that  of  Egypt.  "  In  Egypt,"  says  Canon  Rawlinson, 
"it  is  notorious  that  there  is  no  indication  of  any  early  period  of 
savagery  or  barbarism.  All  the  authorities  agree  that,  however  far  we 
go  back,  we  find  in  Egypt  no  rude  or  uncivilised  time  out  of  which 
civilisation  is  developed."— On^/m  of  Nations,  p.  13.^  The  same  writer 
says  of  Babylon  :  "  In  Babylon  there  is  more  indication  of  early  rudeness. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  not  wanting  signs  of  an  advanced  state 
of  certain  arts,  even  in  the  earliest  times,  which  denote  a  high  degree 
of  civilisation,  and  contrast  most  curiously  with  the  indications  of 
rudeness  here  spoken  of"  (ibid.  p.  14).  Cf.  also  this  writer's  tract  on 
"  The  Antiquity  of  Man  Historically  Considered,"  in  Present  Day  Tracts 
(No.  9). 


NOTE  F. 

EARLY   MONOTHEISTIC   IDEAS. 


It  has  been  shown  (Note  A  to  Lecture  III.— Primitive  Fetishism  and 
Ghost  Worship)  that  man's  earliest  religious  ideas  were  not  his  poorest. 
1  On  son)e  supposed  traces  of  prehistoric  man  in  Egypt,  see  Dawson's  ICgypt  and 
Syria,  pp.  128-136. 


502  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V. 

It  may  now  "be  aflBrmed  that  liis  earliest  ideas  were  in  some  respects  liis- 
Ingliest— that  tlie  consciousness  of  the  one  God  was  with  him  in  the  dawn 
of  his  history,  and  has  never  been  wholly  extinguished  since. 

Ebrard,  after  an  exhaustive  examination  of  ancient  religions,  thus 
sums  up:  "We  have  nowhere  been  able  to  discover  the  least  trace  of 
any  forward  and  upward  movement  from  Fetishism  to  Polytheism,  and 
from  that  again  to  a  gradually  advancing  knowledge  of  the  one  God  ; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  we  have  found  among  all  peoples  of  the  heathen 
world  a  most  decided  tendency  to  sink  from  an  earlier  and  relatively 
purer  knowledge  of  God."— C/imt  Apol.  iii.  p.  317  (Eng.  trans.). 

The  ancient  Egyptian  religion  was  at  heart  monotheistic.  M.  de 
Rouge  says  :  "  Tlie  Egyptian  religion  comprehends  a  quantity  of  local 
worships  .  .  .  Each  of  these  regions  has  its  principal  god  designated  by  a 
special  name  ;  but  it  is  always  the  same  doctrine  which  reappears  under 
different  names.  One  idea  predominates,  that  of  a  single  and  primcival 
God  ;  everywhere  and  always  it  is  one  substance,  self- existent,  and  an 
unapproachable  God."  (Quoted  by  Renouf,  p.  90.)  This,  he  says,  was  the 
doctrine  of  the  Egyptians  in  the  earliest  period.  M.  Renouf  confirms 
this  statement.  "  It  is  incontestably  true,"  he  testifies,  "  that  the 
sublimer  portions  of  the  Egyptian  religion  are  not  the  comparatively 
late  result  of  a  process  of  development  or  elimination  from  the  grosser. 
The  sublimer  portions  are  demonstrably  ancient ;  and  the  last  stage  of 
the  Egyptian  religion,  that  known  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers,  heathen 
or  Christian,  was  by  far  the  grossest  and  most  corrupt." — Hibbert  Lectures, 
p.  91. 

The  early  Babylonian  religion  was  polytheistic;  but  here  also  the  mono- 
theistic consciousness  breaks  through  in  tlie  exalted  predicates  applied 
to  the  great  gods  by  their  respective  worshippers.  Each  god  seems  at  first 
to  have  been  worshipped  by  its  own  city  as  supreme— the  moon-god  at 
Ur  ;  the  sun-god  at  Sippara  ;  Ann,  the  sky,  at  Erech  ;  Ea,  the  deep,  at 
Eridu  ;  Nebo  at  Borsippa,  etc.  Thus  the  moon-god  was  celebrated  as 
the  "lord  and  prince  of  the  gods,  who  in  heaven  and  earth  alone  is 
supreme  ;"  Nebo,  in  the  belief  of  his  worshippers,  was  the  supreme  god, 
the  creator  of  the  world  ;  Anu,  the  sky-god,  became  a  supreme  god,  the 
lord  and  father  of  the  universe,  then  "  the  one  god  "  into  whom  all  the 
other  deities  were  resolved  ;  Asshur  developed  peculiarly  exalted  traits. 
"  We  can,  in  fact,"  says  Professor  Sayce,  "  trace  in  him  all  the  linea- 
ments upon  which  under  other  conditions  there  might  liave  been  built 
up  as  pure  a  faith  as  that  of  the  God  of  Israel."— Sayce's  Hibbert  Lec- 
tures, 1887,  p.  129  ;  cf.  jjp.  116,  160,  191,  etc.  Others  go  farther,  and  see 
in  Ilu  =  Heb.  El,  "  the  Babylonian  supreme  deity "  (cf.  Schrader, 
Keilinschriften,  i.  p.  11,  Eng.  trans.)  ;  and  conclude,  with  Duncker  and 
Lenormant,  that  the  Babylonians  in  the  earliest  times  worshipi^ed  one  ^ 
god.  El,  Ilu.     (In  Ebrard,  ii.  p.  330.)  fll 

The  religion  of  the  Vedas  in  India,  in  like  manner,  is  purer  than  the  ^' 
later  Hindu  developments,  and  points  back,  through  philology,  to  an 
earlier  stage  still,  when  the  Polytheism  of  the  Vedas  was  as  yet  non- 
existent.    "Behind  the  Homeric  poems,"  says  Dr.  Fairbairn,  "and  the 
Vedas,  and  the  separation  of  the  Iranic-Indian  branches,  lies  the  period 


I 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  503 

when  Celt  and  Teuton,  Anglo-Saxon  and  Indian,  Greek  and  Roman, 
Scandinavian  and  Iranian,  lived  together,  a  simple,  single  people.  .  .  . 
Excluding  the  coincidences  natural  to  related  peoples  developing  the  same 
germs,  we  find  two  points  of  radical  and  general  agreement— the  proper 
name  of  one  God,  and  the  term  expressive  of  the  idea  of  God  in  general 
...  A  name  for  God  had  thus  been  formed  before  the  dispersion.  .  .  , 
The  result  is  a  Theism  which  we  may  name  individualistic." — Studies  in 
Phil,  of  Religion,  pp.  22-29  ;  "The  younger  the  Polytheism,  the  fewer  its 
gods,"  p.  22. 

Ebrard  says  :  "  Immediately  after  the  separation  of  the  Iranians  and 
Indians,  that  is,  during  the  first  Vedic  period,  the  consciousness  was  fully 
present  among  the  Indians  that  the  Adityas  did  not  represent  a  multi- 
tude of  separate  deities  in  a  polytheistic  and  mythological  sense,  but  only 
the  fulness  of  the  creative  powers  of  the  one  God,  and  that  the  holy 
God,  and  that  in  each  of  these  Adityas  it  was  always  the  one  God  who  was 
woi'shipped.  And  the  farther  back  we  go  into  the  past,  the  more  dis- 
tinct do  we  find  the  consciousness  among  the  Indians.  In  the  second, 
the  Indra  period,  it  dwindles  away,  and  gives  place  to  a  polytheistic 
conception."— C7i?-is<.  Ajjol.  ii.  pp.  213,  214.  He  finds  the  common  root 
of  the  Indian  and  Iranian  religions  in  "  a  primitive  Monotheism,  or 
Elohism,  as  we  might  call  it,  since  there  is  no  real  distinction  between 
the  Elohim  and  the  Adityas"  (p.  214). 

The  Iranian  religion  in  the  form  in  which  we  find  it  in  the  Zend- 
Avesta  (Zoroastrian)  is  dualistic  ;  but  the  conception  of  Ahura-Mazda,  as 
we  find  it  in  the  earlier  portions,  is  so  exalted  that  it  may  almost  be 
called  monotheistic.  It  unquestionably  springs  from  the  common  Aryan 
root  indicated  above. 

Herodotus  has  the  striking  statement  that  the  ancient  Pelasgi,  the 
early  inhabitants  of  Greece,  gave  no  distinct  names  to  the  gods,  but 
prayed  to  them  collectively.  "  They  called  them  gods,  because  they  had 
set  in  order  and  ruled  all  things."  But  as  for  the  special  names 
attached  to  them,  and  the  functions  severally  assigned  to  them — all 
this,  he  thinks,  goes  no  farther  back  than  Homer  and  Hesiod.  "These 
framed  a  theogony  for  the  Greeks,  and  gave  names  to  the  gods,  and 
assigned  to  them  honours  and  arts,  and  declared  their  several  forms" 
(ii.  52,  53).  Max  Miiller  does  not  hesitate  to  say,  following  Welcker  : 
"  When  we  ascend  to  the  most  distant  heights  of  Greek  history,  the  idea 
of  God  as  the  Supreme  Being  stands  before  us  as  a  simple  fact." — Chips, 
ii.  p.  157.  This  strain  of  Monotheism  in  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  is 
never  absolutely  lost,  but  reappears  in  the  beliefs  of  the  philosophers, 
the  Orphic  mysteries,  and  the  lofty  conceptions  of  the  great  tragic  poets. 

Plutarch,  in  like  manner,  tells  us  of  the  early  religion  of  the  Romans, 
that  it  was  imageless  and  spiritual.  Their  religious  lawgiver,  Numa,  he 
says,  "forbade  the  Romans  to  represent  the  deity  in  the  form  either 
of  man  or  of  beast.  Nor  was  there  among  them  formerly  any  image  or 
statue  of  the  Divine  Being  ;  during  the  first  one  hundred  and  seventy 
years  they  built  temples,  indeed,  and  other  sacred  domes,  but  placed  in 
them  no  figure  of  any  kind  ;  persuaded  that  it  is  impious  to  represent 
things  Divine  by  what  is  perishable,  and  that  we  can  have  no  conception 


504  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V. 

of  God  but  by  the  understanding."— Xilws,  on  Numa.  The  legendary 
form  of  the  tradition  need  not  lead  us  to  doubt  that  it  embodies  a 
substantial  truth. 

On  this  subject,  see  Ebrard's  Christian  Apologetics;  Loring  Brace's  The 
Unknown  God;  Pressense's  The  Ancient  World  and  Christianity  (Eng. 
trans.)  ;  Vigouroux's  La  Bible  et  les  Decouvertes  modernes^  iii. — "  On  Primi- 
tive Monotheism  ; "  Eawlinson's  Tract  on  "  The  Early  Prevalence  of 
Monotheistic  Beliefs,"  in  Present  Day  Tracts  (No.  11),  etc. 


NOTE  G. 

THE   ANTIQUITY   OF   MAN   AND   GEOLOGICAL   TIME. 

In  illustration  of  the  tendency  in  recent  science  greatly  to  restrict  the 
period  formerly  claimed  for  man's  antiquity,  the  following  passages  may 
be  cited  from  an  able  article  on  the  Ice  Age  in  The  Edinburgh  Review  for 
April  1892,  based  on  Dr.  Wright's  Ice  Age  in  N.  America,  and  its  bearings 
on  the  Antiquity  of  Man  (1890). 

"The  Falls  of  Niagara,"  says  this  writer,  "indeed  constitute  of  them- 
selves, in  Dr.  Wright's  apt  phrase,  '  a  glacial  chronometer.'  Much  trouble 
has  been  bestowed  upon  its  accurate  rating  ;  and  repeated  trigonometrical 
surveys  since  1842  afford  so  sure  a  basis  for  calculation  that  serious  error 
in  estimating,  from  the  amount  of  work  done,  the  time  consumed  in 
doing  it,  need  no  longer  be  apprehended.  .  .  .  The  average  rate  of  reces- 
sion, arrived  at  through  careful  weighing  of  these  and  other  analogous 
facts,  is  iive  feet  per  annum,  or  nearly  a  mile  in  a  thousand  years.  Hence 
from  seven  to  eight  thousand  years  have  elapsed  since  the  foam  of 
Niagara  rose  through  the  air  at  Queenston  ;  and  the  interval  might  even 
be  shortened  by  taking  into  account  some  evidences  of  pre-glacial 
erosion  by  a  local  stream,  making  it  probable  that  from  the  whirlpool 
downward  the  cutting  of  the  gorge  proceeded  more  rapidly  than  it  does 
now.  The  date  of  the  close  of  the  Glacial  Epoch  in  the  United  States 
can  scarcely  then  be  placed  earlier  than  6000  B.C.  .  .  . 

Their  testimony  does  not  stand  alone.  .  .  .  Pre-glacially,  it  (the  Missis- 
sippi) followed  a  wide  bend  from  Minneapolis  to  Fort  Snelling ;  now  it- 
flows  straight  across  the  intervening  eight  miles  to  its  junction  with  the 
Minnesota.  On  its  way  it  leaps  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony  ;  and  the  rate 
of  their  retreat  since  1680,  exactly  determined  from  the  observation  of 
Father  Hennequin,  proves  them  to  be  about  eight  thousand  three  hundred 
years  old.  This  second  glacial  timepiece  accordingly,  which,  owing  to 
its  more  southerly  position  was  started  earlier  than  the  first,  gives  sub- 
stantially the  same  reading.  .  .  .  The  ravines  and  cascades  of  Ohio, 
studied  by  Dr.  Wright,  agree  with  the  two  great  Falls  in  giving  a  com- 
paratively recent  overthrow  of  the  ice  regime.  The  unworn  condition  of 
the  glacial  deposits,  the  sharpness  of  glacial  groovings,  above  all,  the 
insignificant  progress  made  by  the  silting  up  of  glacial  lakes,  testify  as 
well,  and  in  some  cases  quite  definitely,  to  a  short  lapse  of  time. 


■  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  505 


But  if  the  Ice  Age  in  America  terminated — as  we  seem  bound  to 
•iduiit — less  than  ten  thousand  years  ago,  so,  beyond  question,  did  the 
Ice  Age  in  Europe.  There  is  no  possibility  of  separating  the  course 
of  glacial  events  in  each  continent.  The  points  of  agreement  are  too 
many ;  the  phenomena  too  nearly  identical  in  themselves  and  in  their 
sequence.  Elevation  and  depression  of  continents,  the  formation,  retreat, 
and  second  advance  of  the  ice-sheet,  the  accompaniment  of  its  melting 
by  tremendous  floods,  the  extermination  of  the  same  varieties  of  animals, 
the  appearance  and  obliteration  of  Palaeolithic  man,  all  preserved  identical 
mutual  relations  in  the  Old  and  New  Worlds.  .  .  .  The  point  has  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  vexed  question  of  the  antiquity  of  man," 
etc. — Edinburgh  Review,  April  1892,  pp.  315-319. 

The  same  view  was  advocated  by  Mr.  P.  F.  Kendall  in  a  paper  pre- 
pared by  Mr.  Gray  and  himself  on  "  The  Cause  of  the  Ice  Age,"  read  in 
the  Geological  Section  of  the  British  Association,  August  4th,  1892.  He 
said  :  "  Another  fact  of  great  importance  bearing  upon  this  question  was 
the  exceedingly  recent  date  of  the  glacial  period.  It  was  the  custom  of 
geologists  not  long  ago  to  talk  about  the  glacial  period  as  perhaps  a 
quarter  of  a  millic>n  years  ago,  or,  at  all  events,  to  make  a  very  liberal 
use  of  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years.  But  now  it  was 
found  that  all  the  physical  evidence  was  in  favour  of  a  very  recent 
departure  of  the  ice.  They  could,  for  instance,  put  the  date  of  the 
commencement  of  the  great  cut  of  the  Niagara  Falls  at  the  close  of  the 
glacial  period,  and  other  like  evidence  in  America  pointed  clearly  to  the 
recency  of  the  departure  of  the  ice." — Scotsman  Report,  August  5th.  The 
remainder  of  the  paper  was  an  examination  of  the  theories  of  the  late 
Dr.  Croll,  Dr.  Ball,  and  Mr.  Warren  Upham,  and  the  exposition  by  the 
authors  of  a  theory  of  their  own  connected  with  the  variability  in  the 
heat  of  the  sun. 

Sir  Archibald  Geikie,  in  his  President's  Address  at  the  same  meeting 
of  the  British  Association,  while  himself  putting  in  a  plea  for  longer 
periods  on  the  ground  of  the  geological  record,  grants  that  the  recent 
drift  of  physical  science  has  been  enormously  to  reduce  the  unlimited 
drafts  on  time  formerly  made  by  geologists.  Lord  Kelvin  "  was  in- 
clined, when  first  dealing  with  the  subject,  to  believe  that  from  a  review 
of  all  the  evidence  then  available,  some  such  period  as  one  hundred 
million  years  ago  would  embrace  the  whole  geological  history  of  the 
globe.  .  .  .  But  physical  inquiry  continued  to  be  pushed  forward  with 
regard  to  the  early  history  and  antiquity  of  the  earth.  Further  con- 
sideration of  the  influence  of  tidal  rotation  in  retarding  the  earth's 
rotation,  and  of  the  sun's  rate  of  cooling,  led  to  sweeping  reductions  of 
the  time  allowable  for  the  evolution  of  the  planet.  The  geologist  found 
himself  in  the  plight  of  Lear  when  his  bodyguard  of  one  hundred  knights 
was  cut  down.  'What  need  you  five-and-twenty,  and  ten  or  five?'  de- 
mands the  inexorable  physicist,  as  he  remorselessly  strikes  slice  after 
slice  from  his  allowance  of  geological  time.  Lord  Kelvin  is  willing,  I 
believe,  to  grant  us  some  twenty  millions  of  years,  but  Professor  Tait 
would  have  us  content  with  less  than  ten  millions." — Report  of  Address. 
One  argument  of  Professor  Geikie  for  lengthening  the  time  is  the  ex- 


5o6  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V. 

treme  slowness  witli  which,  on  the  evolution  hypothesis,  the  changes  in 
species  have  been  brought  about — a  very  distinct  petitio  princijni.  It 
is  worth  while  in  this  connection  to  note  his  admission  :  "So,  too,  with 
the  plants  and  the  higher  animals  which  still  survive.  Some  forms  have 
become  extinct,  but  few  or  none  which  remain  display  any  transitional 
gradations  into  new  species." 

Professor  Tait's  own  words  are  :  "  I  daresay  many  of  you  are  ac- 
quainted with  the  speculations  of  Lyell  and  others,  especially  of  Darwin, 
who  tell  us  that  even  for  a  comparatively  brief  portion  of  recent 
geological  history  three  hundred  millions  of  years  will  not  suffice. 
— OHgin  of  Species,  1859,  p.  287.  We  say  :  So  much  the  worse  for 
geology  as  at  present  understood  by  its  chief  authorities  ;  for,  as  you  will 
presently  see,  physical  considerations  from  various  independent  points  of 
view  render  it  utterly  impossible  that  more  than  ten  or  fifteen  millions  of 
years  can  be  granted  "—Recent  Advances  in  Physical  Science,  pp.  167,  168. 
"  From  this  point  of  view  we  are  led  to  a  limit  of  something  like  ten 
millions  of  years  as  the  utmost  we  can  give  to  geologists  for  their  specula- 
tions as  to  the  history  even  of  the  lowest  orders  of  fossils"  (p.  167). 

See  further  on  this  subject  Dawson's  Origin  of  the  World,  and  Fossil 
Men  and  their  Modern  Representatives ;  Reusch's  Nature  and  the  Bible,  ii. 
pp.  265-366  ;  an  acute  little  book  on  Tfie  Remote  Antiquity  of  Man,  by 
B.  C.  Y.  (1882),  etc. 


NOTE  II. 

THE   CONNECTION   OF   SIN   AND   DEATH. 

RiTSCHL  agrees  with  the  modern  view  in  dissolving  the  connection 
between  human  death  and  sin.  Paul,  indeed,  he  grants,  affirms  this 
connection  ;  but  the  mere  fact  that  this  thought  was  formed  by  an 
apostle  does  not  make  it  a  rule  for  us  {RecliL  und  Ver.  pp.  341,  342). 

An  able  article  appeared  in  the  Revue  de  ThMogie  (Montauban)  for 
July  1882,  on  "  Physical  Death  and  Sin,"  by  M.  Charles  Ducasse,  which 
may  be  referred  to  as  in  agreement  with,  and  confirmatory  of,  the  posi- 
tions taken  up  in  the  Lecture.  The  writer  speaks  of  the  problem  created 
by  the  appearance  of  death  in  the  world  before  sin.  Before  the  appear- 
ance of  man  on  the  earth,  death  reigned  ;  death  was  the  law  even  of  the 
organic  world.  He  shows  that  from  the  first  death  entered  into  the 
Divine  plan  for  the  lower  creation — is  implied  in  what  the  Bible  says  of 
the  reproduction  of  plants  and  animals,  in  the  command  given  to  Adam, 
etc.  But  he  finds  no  contradiction  in  the  thought  that  a  new  order  of 
things  should  enter  with  man.  Man  forms  part  of  nature.  The  roots  of 
his  organism  penetrate  into  the  past  of  other  beings,  and  of  the  material 
world.  But  is  man  only  a  superior  animal  ?  Does  not  a  new  kingdom 
appear  in  him  ?  The  terminating  point  of  the  organic  world,  is  he  not 
equally  the  point  of  departure  of  the  world  of  spirit,  of  reason,  of 
morality  ?  He  is  the  bond  of  union  between  the  world  of  nature  and 
the  Divine  world.     Why,  then,  should  it  not  have  been  precisely  his 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  V.  507 

vocation  to  spiritualise  matter,  and  lead  it  up  to  the  conquest  of  new 
attributes  ?  What  hinders  us  from  affirming  that  man  was  placed  here  to 
acquire  corporeal  immortality,  and  that  if  he  had  not  sinned,  he  would 
have  been  able  to  graft  eternal  life  in  his  body  on  changeable  and 
transient  matter  ?  This  view,  he  thinks,  agrees  with  both  Scripture  and 
science.  Impartial  science  brings  out  the  almost  complete  identity  of 
our  organism  with  that  of  the  animals,  but  it  establishes  not  less  de- 
cisively the  originality  of  our  mental  being,  the  superiority  of  our 
faculties  of  reason.  The  human  kingdom  constitutes  in  its  eyes  a 
kingdom  by  itself.  There  is,  then,  nothing  improbable  in  the  supposition 
that  originally  and  in  the  plan  of  God  the  conditions  of  death  for  man 
were  different  from  those  for  animals.  The  actual  deatli  of  man  would 
still  in  this  view  be  the  consequence  of  his  sin  ;  and  this  is  in  full  accord 
with  the  Biblical  teaching. 

See  also  a  suggestive  treatment  of  this  subject  in  Dr.  Matheson's  Can 
the  Old  Faith  Live  with  the  New  ?  pp.  206-218. 


NOTES    TO     LECTUKE    VI. 


NOTE  A. 

THE   DOCTRINE   OF   PRE-EXISTENCE. 

The  more  recent  theology  admits  the  application  of  the  notion  of  pre- 
existence  to  Christ  in  the  New  Testament,  but  explains  it  out  of  current 
Jewish  modes  of  thought  on  this  subject.  See  on  this  Harnack's  I)og- 
mengescMchte,  i.  pp.  89-93,  710-719  ;  Baldensperger's  Das  Selbsthewusstsein 
Jesu,  pp.  85-92  (2nd  edition)  ;  Bornemann's  Unterricht  im  Chrutenthum^ 
pp.  92-96,  etc.  According  to  these  writers,  the  conception  of  pre- 
existence  was  a  current  one  in  the  Rabbinical  schools  and  in 
apocalyptic  literature.  Not  only  distinguished  persons,  as  Adam, 
Enoch,  Moses,  but  distinguished  objects,  as  the  tabernacle,  the  temple, 
the  tables  of  the  law,  were  figured  as  having  had  heavenly  arche- 
types, i.e.  as  pre-existent.  Various  causes  are  assigned  for  this  mode  of 
representation : — 

1.  There  is  the  desire  to  express  the  inner  worth  of  a  valued 
object  in  distinction  from  its  inadequate  empirical  form,  which  leads 
to  the  essence  being  hypostatised,  and  raised  above  space  and  time 
(Harnack). 

2.  There  is  the  conversion  of  an  "  end  "  into  a  "  cause  " — this  specially 
in  the  case  of  persons  (the  Messiah),  peoples  (Israel),  a  collective  body 
(the  Church).  "Where  something  which  appears  later  was  apprehended 
as  the  end  of  a  series  of  dispositions,  it  was  not  unfrequently  hypostatised, 
and  made  prior  to  these  arrangements  in  point  of  time  ;  the  conceived 
end  was  placed  in  a  kind  of  real  existence  before  the  means  through 
which  it  was  destined  to  be  realised  on  earth,  as  an  original  cause  of 
them."— Harnack,  pp.  89,  90. 

3.  There  is  the  thought  of  predestination,  which  leads  to  an  ideal 
pre-existence  being  realistically  conceived  as  an  actual  one  (Baldens - 
perger). 

This  category,  existing  in  Jewish  circles,  was,  it  is  thought,  simply 
taken  over  and  applied  to  Christ,  believed  in  as  the  Messiah,  risen  and 
exalted  to  heaven.  In  this  way,  Harnack  thinks,  the  first  Christians 
"  went  beyond  the  expressions  developed  out  of  the  Messianic  conscious- 
ness of  Jesus  Himself  upon  His  Person,  and  sought  notionally  and 
speculatively  to  grasp  the  worth  and  absolute  significance  of  His  Person  " 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI.  509 

(p.  90).^  "  The  thought  of  pre-existence,"  says  Bornemann,  "  was  not 
supernaturally  communicated  to  the  apostles,  nor  was  formed  for  the 
first  time  by  Paul,  nor  generally  was  unusual  in  that  time  ;  but  we  have 
to  do  here  with  a  self-evident  application  to  Jesus  of  an  attribute  already 
firmly  established  in  Judaism  as  belonging  to  the  Messiah." — Unterricht, 
p.  93.  In  short,  the  predicate  of  pre-existence  was  only  one  of  several 
ways  which  the  early  Church  took  to  express  its  sense  of  the  abidini^ 
worth  and  felt  mystery  of  the  Person  of  Jesus.  Bornemann  mentions 
three  of  these  —  1.  The  supernatural  birth;  2.  The  thought  of  pre- 
existence  ;  3.  The  incarnation  of  the  eternal  Divine  Word  of  Revelation — 
"  ideas,"  he  says,  "  subsisting  independently  of  each  other,  and  alongside 
of  each  other,  as  distinct  but  disparate  attempts  to  ground  the  mystery 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  in  its  Divine  origin  "  (p.  92). 

It  appears  from  this  that  the  application  of  the  category  of  pre- 
existence  to  Jesus  was  a  mere  deduction  of  faith  on  the  part  of  the  first 
disciples — the  application  to  Him,  as  Bornemann  says,  of  one  of  "  the 
religious  and  philosophical  notions  and  forms  of  *  Vorstellung '  generally 
current  in  that  time," — and  is  therefore  of  no  normative  value  for  the 
Church  to-day.  I  presume  that  not  one  of  the  writers  I  have  quoted 
holds  that  Christ  really  pre-existed  as  the  apostles  thought  He  did. 
Before  we  accept  this  view,  we  would  require  to  be  satisfied  of  several 
things. 

1.  That  this  Babbinical  mode  of  representation  was  really  so  widely 
current  as  is  alleged,  and  that  it  was  indeed  the  source  from  which  the 
apostles  derived  their  belief  in  Christ's  eternal  pre-existence. 

2.  That  this  belief  had  not  its  origin  in  very  distinct  utterances  of 
Christ  Himself,  proceeding  from  the  depths  of  His  Divine  self-knowledge 
(John  viii.  58,  xviii.  5,  etc.). 

3.  That  there  is  a  true  analogy  between  the  New  Testament  concep- 
tion of  Christ's  pre-existence  and  this  Rabbinical  notion.  The  Jewish 
notion,  according  to  Harnack,  was  that  "  the  earthly  things  pre-exist 
Avith  God  just  as  they  appear  on  earth,  with  all  the  material  properties 
of  their  being"  (p.  710).  They  do  not  exist  eternally — at  least  the  Law 
(which  was  exalted  most  highly  of  all)  did  not  (two  thousand  years 
before  the  creation  of  the  world,  the  Rabbis  said).  But  Christ  (1)  exists 
from  eternity  ;  (2)  as  a  Divine  Person  with  the  Father  ;  (3)  one  in  nature 
and  glory  with  the  Father  ;  (4)  His  Divine  nature  is  distinguished  from 
His  humanity  which  He  assumed  in  time  ;  (5)  His  appearance  on  earth 
is  the  result  of  a  voluntary  act  of  self-abnegation  and  love— an  ethical 
act.  It  is  only  confusing  things  that  differ  to  pretend  that  the  Rabbinical 
absurdities  alluded  to  explain  a  Christian  doctrine  like  this. 

4.  Many  special  facts  testify  against  the  sufficiency  of  this  explanation. 

(1)  The  support  sought  for  it  in  the  New  Testament  is  of  the  most 
flimsy  character,  e.g.  Gal.  iv.  26  ;  Heb.  xii.  22  ;  Rev.  xxi.  2. 

(2)  It  is  admitted  that  "  the  representations  of  a  pre-existent  Messiah 
in  Judaism  were  in  no  way  very  widespread  "  (Harnack,  p.  89),  and  that 

1  On  Harnack's  distinction  between  the  Jewish  and  Hellenistic  forms  of  this 
notion,  see  the  criticisms  by  Baldensperger  in  his  Das  Selbsthewusstsein  Jesu,  2ud 
ed.  p.  89. 


5TO  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI. 

they  do  not  appear  in  all  the  New  Testament  writings.  In  truth,  the 
writings  in  which  they  do  appear  are  not  specially  the  Jewish  ones,  hut 
those  in  which  scholars  liave  thought  they  detected  most  traces  of 
Hellenistic  influence. 

(3)  It  is  plain  that  in  the  writings  in  which  they  do  appear,  these 
Jewish  modes  of  thought  were  not  dominant.  Paul,  e.g.,  regards  believers 
as  eternally  chosen  and  foreordained  in  Christ  to  salvation  ;  but  he  does 
not  attribute  to  them  any  such  pre-existence  as  he  ascribes  to  Christ. 
On  this  hypothesis,  he  ought  to  have  done  so. 

I  cannot  therefore  accept  this  new  theory  as  adequate  to  the  facts. 
Nor  do  I  believe  that  the  apostles  were  left  simply  to  their  own  gropings 
and  imaginings  in  this  and  other  great  matters  of  the  Christian  faith.  I 
take  it  as  part  of  the  Christian  view  that  they  were  guided  by  the  Spirit 
of  Revelation  into  the  truth  which  they  possessed,  and  that  their 
teachings  laid  the  foundations  of  doctrine  for  the  Church  in  all  time. 


NOTE  B. 

PHILO   AND   THE   FOURTH   GOSPEL. 

The  most  diverse  opinions  prevail  as  to  the  extent  to  which  the  Fourth 
Gospel  and  other  books  of  the  New  Testament  have  been  influenced 
by  the  Alexandrian  philosophy — some,  like  Harnack  and  Weiss,  denying 
its  presence  altogether  ;  others,  like  Pfleiderer,  seeing  its  influence  in 
John,  Hebrews,  Ephesians,  and  Colossians,  etc.  It  will  put  the  matter 
in  a  clearer  light  if  we  look  briefly,  first,  at  Philo's  own  philosophy,  and 
at  the  sources  from  which  it  was  derived. 

The  three  main  sources  of  Philo's  philosophy  were  Platonism,  Stoicism, 
and  the  Old  Testament. 

1.  From  Plato,  the  chief  contribution  was  the  theory  of  ideas— of  an 
ideal  or  noetic  world  in  the  Divine  mind,  after  the  pattern  of  which 
this  visible  world  was  made,  (cf.  the  Timceus).  It  is  to  be  observed, 
however,  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  indication  in  Plato  that  this 
idea  of  the  world  was  conceived  of  as  a  personal  agent,  or  as  anything  else 
than  an  attribute  of  the  Divine  mind,  in  which  it  resides  like  a  plan  in  the 
mind  of  an  architect.^ 

2.  The  indebtedness  of  Philo  to  Plato  is  very  obvious  ;  but  it  is  not 
from  Plato  that  Philo  derives  the  term  Logos.  He  obtains  this  term 
from  the  Stoics.  By  the  Logos,  however,  the  Stoics  as  little  as  Plato 
understood  a  distinct  hypostasis  in  the  sphere  of  the  Divine — a  second 
Divine  Being.  The  Logos,  with  the  Stoics,  is  simply  the  Divine  Eeason 
itself;  that  eternal  Divine  Reason  which  is  immanent  in  the  universe, 
and  in  substance  is  one  with  it  (fire).  There  was  a  further  doctrine 
which  the  Stoics  held,  however,  whicli  is  of  great  importance  for  the 
understanding  of  Philo.     Together  with  their  fundamentally  pantheistic 

1  The  "ideas,"  however,  are  also  regarded  as  the  immanent  forms  or  essences  of 
things,  which  become  what  they  are  through  "participation"  in  them, — a  point  of 
contact  with  the  Stoical  doctrine  noted  below. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI.  511 

conception  of  the  all-pervading  Divine  Reason,  they  held  that  this 
Reason  develops  or  manifests  itself  in  a  multitude  of  powers  or  forces, 
called  also  >.6yoi.  This  is  the  famous  Stoical  doctrine  of  the  "Koyot 
vKipuoLTiKdi — the  Logos -seeds  or  powers  (hwui^iii)  —  which  develop 
themselves  in  particular  things.  The  theory  is  very  different  from 
Plato's  ;  yet  the  step  was  not  great  to  identify  these  seed-like  ^.oyot  of  the 
Stoics — the  immanent  rational  principles  of  things — with  the  "  ideas  "  of 
Plato,  which  also  in  their  own  way  were  active  powers  or  principles. 
Here,  then,  we  have  another  premiss  of  the  theory  of  Philo.  Philo  takes 
over  this  doctrine  of  the  Stoics  bodily, — identifies  their  active  "hoyoi  with 
the  "  ideas  "  of  Plato  ;  identifies  them,  further,  with  the  Old  Testament 
angels  and  Greek  demons, — and  gathers  them  up,  finally,  as  the  Stoics 
also  did,  into  the  unity  of  the  one  Logos. 

3.  But  Philo  went  a  step  further.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  his  theory 
that  this  Logos  is  distinguished  from  God  Himself  as  the  absolute  and 
highest  Being — is  hypostatised — projected,  as  it  were,  from  the  Divine 
mind,  and  viewed,  though  in  a  very  wavering  and  fluctuating  way,  as  a 
])ersonal  agent.^  Now,  where  did  Philo  get  this  last  conception  ?  Not 
from  Platonic  or  Stoical  philosophy — not  from  Greek  philosophy  at  all. 
He  got  it  from  the  same  source  whence  he  derived  his  Immovable 
Monotheism,  his  firm  faith  in  Divine  Providence,  his  doctrine  of  angels, 
etc. , — from  the  Old  Testament.  The  Old  Testament  also  has  its  distinc- 
tion between  God  in  His  hidden  and  incommunicable  essence,  and  God 
as  revealed  ;  and  has  its  names  for  this  Revelation-side  of  God's  nature 
(His  name,  glory,  face,  word,  angel  of  Jehovah,  etc.  Of.  Oehler's  Theol. 
of  the  Old  Testament,  pp.  181-196  ;  Newman's  Avians,  pp.  92,  153).  There 
is,  in  particular,  the  doctrine  of  the  (personified)  Divine  Wisdom  in  the 
Book  of  Proverbs.  These  germs  did  not  lie  without  development  on  the 
soil  of  Judaism,  as  seen  in  the  curious  doctrine  of  the  Memra,  or  word  of 
Jehovah,  in  the  Targums  (cf.  Edersheim's  Jesus  the  Messiah,  i.  pp.  47,  48  ; 
ii.  pp.  659-664 — Appendix  on  "Philo  of  Alexandria  and  Rabbinic 
Theology  ") — the  Memra  being  a  distinct  hypostasis  whose  name  is  sub- 
stituted for  Jehovah's  ;  and  that  they  were  developed  on  Greek  soil  is 
evidenced  by  the  apocryphal  Book  of  Wisdom,  in  which  we  have,  as 
Schiirer  points  out,  nearly  all  the  elements  of  Philo's  doctrine  already 
present  {Hist,  of  Jewish  People,  Div.  ii.  vol.  iii.  p.  232).  We  cannot  err, 
therefore,  in  attributing  Philo's  doctrine  of  the  hypostatic  Logos  to  the 
same  Old  Testament  source. 

Once  this  is  granted,  many  things  are  clear.  The  predicates  with  which 
Philo  clothes  his  Logos—those  of  Creator,  High-Priest,  Archangel,  In- 
tercessor, etc.— are  plainly  drawn  over  upon  it  from  the  Old  Testament. 
But  it  is  also  clear  how  Philo's  doctrine  should  become  in  a  certain  way 
a  preparation  for  the  gospel.  Comparing  his  view  with  that  of  the 
Gospel  of  John,  we  see  indeed— notwithstanding  assertions  to  the  con- 
trary—a fundamental  contrast.  The  evangelist  has  his  feet  on  a  fact 
which  he  seeks  to  interpret ;  Philo  moves  throughout  in  the  region  of 

1  It  is  a  point  on  which  opinions  differ  as  to  whether  Philo's  Logos  was  conceived 
of  as  a  personal  agent— was  hypostatised  (see  Drummond's  Philo  of  Alexandria^ 
which  upholds  the  negative) ;  but  the  above  seems  the  preferable  view. 


512  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI. 

speculation.  An  incarnation  would  conflict  with  the  first  principles  of  his 
philosophy.  The  whole  substance  of  the  doctrine  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  different  from  Philo's  speculations.  Even  in  their  respective  con- 
cejDtions  of  the  Logos,  John  and  Philo  are  at  variance  ;  for  Philo  means 
by  Logos  the  internal  Reason,  never  the  spoken  word  ;  while  John 
means  the  word  uttered,  spoken.  His  view  is  in  accordance  with  the 
Palestinian,  not  with  the  Greek  conception.  I  cannot  therefore  but 
agree  with  Harnack  when  he  says  :  "  John  and  Philo  have  little  more  in 
common  than  the  name"  {Dogmengeschichte^  i.  p.  85).  Even  the  term 
Logos  does  not  occur  after  the  Prologue.  But  suppose  the  resemblances 
had  been  greater  than  they  are,  would  this  necessarily  have  been  to  the 
prejudice  of  the  Gospel  ?  I  cannot  see  it ;  for  it  has  just  been  shown 
that  the  one  peculiar  thing  in  Philo's  theory,— that  which  brings  it  into 
relation  with  the  Gospel,—  viz.  its  hypostatisation  of  the  Logos,  is  pre- 
cisely that  feature  which  he  did  not  get  from  Greek  philosophy,  but 
from  the  Old  Testament.  It  was  a  very  different  thing  for  one  whose 
mind  was  stored,  as  Philo's  was,  with  the  facts  of  the  Old  Testament 
Revelation,  to  come  in  contact  with  the  suggestive  teachings  of  Plato, 
from  what  it  would  have  been  for  another  with  no  such  preparation 
(cf.  Newman's  Avians,  pp.  91,  92).  Philo,  working  with  these  ideas, 
struck  out  a  theory  which  is  not  unchristian,  but  goes  forward  rather  to 
meet  the  Christian  view,  and  find  its  completion  in  it.  That  there  is  a 
Divine  Reason  in  the  universe,  and  that  this  universal  Logos  is  none 
other  than  He  who  is  the  life  and  light  of  men,  and  who  in  the  fulness 
of  time  became  flesh, — this  is  not  less  Christian  teaching  because  Philo 
in  some  respects  was  in  accord  with  it.  John,  if  we  assume  him  to  have 
heard  of  this  doctrine  of  Philo's,  had  no  reason  to  reject  it  so  far  as  it 
went.  It  harmonised  with  the  truth  he  held,  and  furnished  a  fitting 
form  in  which  to  convey  that  truth.  Whether  even  this  much  of 
Alexandrian  influence  is  present  in  the  Gospel,  it  is  not  easy  to 
determine.  Meanwhile,  it  is  only  doing  justice  to  this  great  Jewish 
thinker  to  see  in  him  an  important  link  in  the  providential  preparation 
for  Christian  conceptions— even  if  we  do  not  go  further,  and  speak  of 
him,  with  Pfleiderer,  as  "  the  last  Messianic  prophet  of  Israel,  the  Alex- 
andrian John  the  Baptist,  who  stretches  out  a  hand  to  John  the 
Evangelist"  {Reli(jionsj)hilosophie,  iii.  p.  176,  Eng.  trans.). 

On  Philo's  philosophy,  and  his  relation  to  the  Gospel,  the  works  of 
Siegfried,  Drummond,  Zeller,  Schiirer,  Edersheim,  Harnack,  Pfleiderer, 
Hatch  {Hibhert  Lectures),  Martineau  (Seat  of  Authority),  Godet,  Dorner,  etc., 
may  be  consulted. 


NOTE  C. 

THE   RESURRECTION   OF  CHRIST   AND   THE    REALITY   OF   HIS 
DIVINE  CLAIM. 

If  the  premises  of  the  Christian  view  are  correct  as  to  Christ's  claim  to 
be  the  Son  of  God,  and  as  to  the  connection  of  sin  with  death,  it  was 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI.  5131 

impossible  that  He,  the  Holy  One,  should  be  holden  of  death.  The 
Prince  of  Life  must  overcome  death.  His  resurrection  is  the  pledge  that 
death  shall  yet  be  swallowed  up  in  victory. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  denial  of  Christ's  resurrection  leads  to  a  sub- 
version of  His  whole  claim  as  unfounded.^  If  historically  real,  the 
resurrection  of  Christ  is  a  confirmation  of  Christ's  entire  claim  ;  if  it 
did  not  happen,  this  alone  negates  it.  The  resurrection  is  thus  an 
integral  part  of  the  Christian  view.  In  this  respect  also — as  well  as  in 
its  bearings  on  our  justification — we  may  say  :  "If  Christ  hath  not  been 
raised,  your  faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins  "  (1  Cor.  xv.  17).^ 

It  is  only  what  might  have  been  anticipated,  therefore,  when  we  find 
the  advocates  of  the  modern  view — those  who  refuse  Christ's  claim — 
emphatic  in  their  denial  of  the  resurrection,  and  unceasing  in  their 
efforts  to  demolish  the  evidence  of  it.  It  is  more  surprising  to  find 
writers  who  claim  to  be  upholders  of  the  true  Christianity  playing  fast 
and  loose  with  this  fact  of  the  Gospel,  and  doing  their  best  to  belittle 
the  importance  of  it  for  Christian  faith.  I  refer  particularly  to  the 
attitiide  of  certain  writers  of  the  Ritschlian  school.  It  is  extremely 
doubtful  if  leading  representatives  of  this  school,  as  Harnack  and  Wendt, 
accept  the  resurrection  of  Christ  in  the  literal  sense  at  all.  Harnack 
expressly  avers  that  there  is  no  satisfactory  historical  evidence  of  the 
resurrection  of  Christ.  He  goes  further,  and  pours  contempt  on  the 
attempt  to  find  such  evidence.  He  not  merely  argues — what  all  will 
admit — that  a  faith  in  Christ  based  on  mere  historic  evidence  is  no  true 
faith  ;  but  he  scouts  the  idea  of  being  dependent  on  historic  evidence  at  all. 
Such  evidence,  if  we  had  it,  would  give  us,  he  thinks,  no  help.  Faith 
must  be  perfectly  independent  of  evidence  coming  to  us  through  the 
testimony  of  others.  "  To  believe  on  the  ground  of  appearances  which 
others  have  had,  is  a  levity  which  will  always  revenge  itself  through 
uprising  doubt."  This  is  professedly  an  exaltation  of  faith  ;  but  it  directly 
becomes  apparent  that  faith  is  not  intended  to  give  us  any  guarantee  of 
the  physical  resurrection— that,  in  truth,  this  part  of  Christianity  is  to  be 
given  up.  The  Christian  "  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
form  in  which  Christ  lives,  but  only  with  the  conviction  that  He  is  the 
living  Lord."  The  determination  of  the  form  was  dependent  on  the  widely 
differing  general  representations  about  a  future  life,  resurrection,  restora- 
tion, and  glorification  of  the  body,  which  prevailed  at  that  particular 
time  (see  the  whole  note,  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  pp.  75,  76).  Wendt  speaks 
in  quite  similar  terms.  Christ's  sayings  on  His  own  resurrection  are 
interpreted  as  conveying  only  the  idea  that  "Jesus  would  after  the 
briefest  delay  be  awakened  from  death  to  the  heavenly  life  with  God"  ; 
and  the  Cliurch  misinterpreted  them  in  applying  them  on  the  ground 
of  "  appearances  which  were  held  by  them  as  certain  facts  of  experience 

1  On  the  same  principle  that  in  a  hypothetical  syllogism  the  denial  of  the  con- 
sequent leads  to  the  denial  of  the  antecedent.  If  Christ  was  the  Divine  Son,  He 
could  not  be  holden  of  death.  If  He  was  holden  of  death,  His  claim  to  be  the 
Divine  Son  is  refuted. 

2  The  resurrection  has  a  constitutive  place  in  the  Christian  view  in  connection 
with  Redemption  ;  but  into  this  I  do  not  enter  here. 

33 


514  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VL 

to  a  literal  bodily  resurrection  "  {T>ie  Lehre  Jesu,  ii.  p.  543).  One  would 
like  to  know  how  much  objective  reality  Wendt  is  disposed  to  attribute 
to  these  "appearances."  To  Hermann  also  the  exaltation  of  Christ  is 
"a  thought  of  faith,"  indemonstrable  through  historical  evidence.  It 
is  an  ill  service  to  name  the  resurrection  to  us  living  to-day  as  a  fact 
likely  to  convince  unbelievers.  "For  it  is  related  to  us  by  others" 
(Verkehr,  2nd  edition,  p.  239).^ 

This  minimising  of  the  importance  of  the  historical  resurrection  on 
the  part  of  Kitschlian  writers  accords  only  too  well  with  the  general 
subjectivity  of  the  school.  A  theory  which  resolves  religion  wholly  into 
"judgments  of  value,"  or,  as  Hermann  prefers  to  call  them,  "thoughts 
of  faith,"  has  clearly  no  room  for  an  objective  fact  like  the  resurrection. 
A  view  which  lays  the  whole  stress  on  the  impression  (Eindruck)  pro- 
duced by  Christ's  earthly  life,  has  no  means  of  incorporating  the  resur- 
rection into  itself  as  a  constitutive  part  of  its  Christianity.  It  remains 
at  most  a  deduction  of  faith  without  inner  relation  to  salvation.  It  is 
apt  to  be  felt  to  be  a  superfluous  appendage.  It  might  almost  be  said 
to  be  a  test  of  the  adequacy  of  the  view  of  Christ  and  His  work,  taken 
by  any  school,  whether  it  is  able  to  take  in  the  resurrection  of  Christ 
as  a  constitutive  j)art  of  it.  I  cannot  therefore  but  regard  the  Eitschlian 
position  as  virtually  a  surrender  of  faith  in  Christ's  resurrection.  The 
attempt  to  set  faith  and  historical  evidence  in  opposition  to  each  other 
is  one  that  must  fail.  Since  it  is  implied  in  Christ's  whole  claim  that 
death  cannot  hold  Him, — not  merely,  as  with  the  Ritschlians,  that  He  has 
a  spiritual  life  with  God, — faith  would  be  involved  in  insoluble  contra- 
dictions  if  it  could  be  shown  that  Christ  has  not  risen  ;  or,  what  comes 
to  the  same  thing,  that  there  is  no  historical  evidence  that  He  has  risen. 
It  may  be,  and  is,  involved  in  our  faith  that  He  is  risen  from  the  dead  ; 
but  this  faith  would  not  of  itself  be  a  sufficient  ground  for  asserting 
that  He  had  risen,  if  all  historical  evidence  for  the  statement  were 
wanting.  Faith  cherishes  the  just  expectation  that,  if  Christ  has  risen, 
there  will  be  historical  evidence  of  the  fact ;  and  were  such  evidence  not 
forthcoming,  it  would  be  driven  back  upon  itself  in  questioning  whether 
its  confidence  was  not  self-delusion. 

In  harmony  with  this  view  is  the  place  which  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  holds  in  Scripture,  and  the  stress  there  laid  upon  its  historical 
attestation  (1  Cor.  xv.  1-19).  I  cannot  enter  here  into  detailed  discus- 
sion of  the  historical  evidence.  The  empty  grave  on  the  third  day  is  a 
fact  securely  attested  by  the  earliest  traditions.  The  undoubting  faith 
of  the  first  disciples  in  the  resurrection  of  their  Lord,  and  in  His  re- 
peated appearances  to  themselves,  is  also  beyond  question.  Baur  and 
most  candid  writers  acknowledge  that  something  extraordinary  must 
have  happened  on  that  third  day  to  lay  a  basis  for  this  faith,  and  to 
change  their  despair  into  joyful  and  triumphant  confidence  (see  Baur's 

1  Bornemann  is  the  most  explicit  on  this  subject,  and  seems  to  hold  a  literal 
resurrection.  But  even  he  regards  it  as  insoluble  whether  Christ  really  appeared 
in  the  body  to  His  disciples,  or  "whether  those  appearances  rested  on  a  miraculous 
working  of  the  Person  of  Jesus  on  the  soids  of  the  disciples,"  i.e.  were  subjective 
impressions  ;  and  treats  the  question  as  indiflFerent  to  faith. — Unterricht,  p.  85. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI,  515 

Church  History^  i.  p,  42,  Eng.  trans.).  Tlie  hypothesis  of  imposture  has 
now  no  respectable  advocates.  The  idea  of  a  "  swoon  "  finds  little  sup- 
port. The  "  vision-hypothesis,"  which  would  reduce  the  apostles  to  the 
level  of  hysterical  women,  is  inexplicable  out  of  psychological  conditions, 
and  has  been  refuted  almost  to  weariness  (see  good  remarks  on  it  in 
Beyschlag's  Lehen  Jesu,  in  his  chapter  on  the  Resurrection,  i.  pp.  406-450). 
The  attempt  to  make  it  appear  as  if  Paul  believed  only  in  a  visionary 
appearance  of  Christ,  can  hardly  convince  anybody.  In  all  these  discus- 
sions the  alternative  invariably  comes  back  to  be — conscious  imposture, 
or  the  reality  of  the  fact.  This  is  the  simplest  explanation  of  all  of  the 
narratives  of  the  resurrection — that  it  really  took  place.  As  Beyschlag 
says  :  "  The  faith  of  the  disciples  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  which  no 
one  denies,  cannot  have  originated,  and  cannot  be  explained  otherwise 
than  through  the  fact  of  the  resurrection,  through  the  fact  in  its  full, 
objective,  supernatural  sense,  as  hitherto  understood  "  (p.  440).  So  long  as 
this  is  contested,  the  resurrection  remains  a  problem  which  the  failure  of 
rival  attempts  at  explanation  only  leaves  in  deeper  darkness. 

For  a  good  statement  and  criticism  of  the  various  hypotheses,  see 
Schaff's  Hist,  of  the  Church,  i.  pp.  172-186  ;  Godet's  Defence  of  the  Chris- 
tian Faith  (Eng.  trans.),  chaps,  i.  and  ii.  (against  Reville) ;  and  Christlieb's 
Moderne  Zweifel,  Lect.  VII.  (Eng.  trans.). 


NOTES    TO    LECTUEE    VII. 


NOTE  A. 

RECENT   THEORIES   OF   THE  TRINITY. 

Some  examples  may  be  given  of  recent  theories  of  the  Trinity  which 
seem  defective  from  the  Christian  point  of  view.  Of  these,  three  classes 
may  be  named — 

I.  Speculative  Theories,  which  do  not  start  from  the  basis  of  Christian 
facts,  but  are  the  products  of  a  priori  deduction.  These  theories  are 
abstract,  speculative,  cosmological,  with  little  relation  to  distinctively 
Christian  interests.  The  typical  example  here  is  Hegel's,  in  his  Religions- 
philosophie,  ii.  pp.  223-251.  Hegel  speaks  of  an  immanent  Trinity  in 
God — a  Trinity  of  God's  being  before  or  outside  of  the  creation  of  the 
world.  He  does  not  disdain  even  the  name  "persons," — "person,  or 
rather  subject,"— speaks  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit.  Yet  this  Trinity  is 
little  more  than  the  play  of  pure  thought  with  itself  in  the  element  of 
highest  abstraction  :  thought  eternally  distinguishing  itself  from  itself, 
and  as  eternally  sublating  that  distinction.  The  Father  is  the  pure 
abstract  idea  ;  the  Son  is  the  element  of  particularity  in  that  idea  ;  the 
Spirit  is  the  sublation  of  this  in  individuality.  The  distinction  is  only 
ideal,  does  not  become  real  till  the  passage  is  made  into  the  actuality  of 
the  finite  world.  Here  Hegel  is  careful  to  remind  us  that  though  in  the 
domain  of  science  the  idea  is  first,  in  existence  it  is  later — it  comes  later 
to  consciousness  and  knowledge  (p.  247).  This  Trinity  has  therefore  no 
existence  prior  to  the  world  or  independently  of  it ;  it  is  simply 
potentiality  and  basis.  [Hegel's  own  formula  for  his  immanent  process 
is — "  God  in  His  eternal  universality  is  this  :  to  distinguish  Himself,  to 
determine  Himself,  to  posit  another  to  Himself,  and  again  to  annul  this 
distinction — therein  to  be  in  Himself,  and  only  through  this  act  of 
self-production  is  He  Spirit"  (p.  237).]  The  supreme  abstraction  of 
all  this  is  very  evident.  The  names  of  Christian  theology  are  retained, 
with  no  agreement  in  content.  What  possible  resemblance  has  "the 
idea  in  its  abstract  universality"  to  the  Father  in  the  Christian  con- 
ception ?  Yet  Hegel's  treatment  contains  many  profound  and  suggestive 
thoughts.  In  consonance  with  this  speculative  mode  of  thought  are  the 
theories  which  make  the  world,  or  the  idea  of  the  world,  the  mediating 
factor  in  the  Divine  self-consciousness. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII,  517 

II.  Imijersonal  Theories,  which  recognise  an  immanent  distinction 
in  the  Godhead,  but  one  only  of  potencies,  of  momenta  in  the  Divine 
life,  of  modes  of  existence,  therefore  not  a  true  personal  Trinity.  Thus 
Schelling  (whose  "potencies,"  however,  become  personal  later  in  the 
\vorld-process),i  Rothe,  Beyschlag,  etc.  This  view  lies  near  akin  to 
Sabellianism.  E.g.  Rothe's  distinctions  of  nature,  essence,  and  personality 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Biblical  distinctions  of  Father,  Son,  and 
Spirit,  which  he  takes  to  relate  only  to  the  sphere  of  Revelation.  A 
recent  example  of  this  type  of  theory  is  afforded  by  F.  A.  B.  Nitzsch  in 
his  Lehrhuch  der  evangelischen  Dogmatik  (1892).  Nitzsch  holds  that  we  are 
compelled  to  postulate,  not  simply  a  Trinity  of  Revelation,  but  a  Trinity 
of  essence  (ii.  p.  442).  But  it  is  a  Trinity  of  potencies,  principles, 
modes  of  subsistence  (pp.  439-446),  not  persons.  A  Trinity  of  persons, 
he  thinks,  would  be  Tritheism  (p.  444).  He  grants  that  the  Scripture 
teaches  the  personality  of  the  Spirit,  in  part  also  of  the  Logos  (pp. 
440,  444).  But  this  representation  cannot  be  dogmatically  used  (p.  444). 
The  personality  of  the  Son  lies  in  the  human  nature  (p.  441),  and  the 
Spirit  is  not  a  person,  but  a  principle.  It  is,  however,  a  Divine  nature, 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  ;  is  not  to  be  interchanged  with  the  holy 
disposition  or  religiously- elevated  state  of  feeling  of  man,^  but  is  con- 
sidered as  an  objective,  real  Divine  power,  which  is  essentially  equal 
with  God  (p.  439).  Nevertheless,  when  we  go  on  to  ask  what  this  three- 
fold mode  of  subsistence  in  the  Divine  nature  is,  we  find  it  difficult  to 
distinguish  it  from  a  Trinity  of  Revelation.  God  as  Father  is  God  in 
Himself  in  distinction  from  His  relation  to  the  world  ;  the  Logos  is  the 
Revelation  principle  in  God  ;  and  the  Spirit  is  the  principle  of  the 
Divine  self-communication  (pp.  445,  446).  Christ  is  the  one  in 
whom  this  Revelation  finds  its  highest  expression ;  in  this  sense 
He  is  the  Incarnation  of  the  Logos,  and  has  "Godhead."  "This 
expression,"  he  tells  us,  "is  quite  in  place"  (p.  514).  It  is  evident 
(1)  that  this  so-called  ontological  Trinity  is  barely  distinguishable 
from  an  economical  or  Sabellian  one ;  (2)  that  Christ  has  not  real 
Godhead— is,  in  truth,  purely  man,  only  the  highest  organ  of  Divine 
Revelation  ;  and  (3)  that  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  sought  to  be  established 
is  awkward  and  confused,  and  has  little  relation  to  the  scriptural 
doctrine.  It  is  made  to  rest  primarily  on  God's  relation  to  the  world 
(p.  442),  and  not  on  the  facts  of  Redemption.  Its  representation  of 
"  God  in  Himself"  as  the  Father  has  nothing  in  common  with  the  New 

ipfleiderer  remarks  on  Schelling's  Trinity— "The  interpretation  of  the  three 
potencies  by  the  three  persons  of  the  Church's  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and  the 
more  than  bold  exposition  of  dogmatic  formulae  and  passages  of  Scripture,  we  may 
pass  by  as  a  mere  hors  d'ceuvre,  without  value  for  philosophy.  Orthodoxy  could 
feel  no  gratitude  to  our  philosopher  for  his  deduction  of  a  triple  Divine  personality 
which  only  began  with  the  creation,  and  was  only  to  be  fully  realised  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  world-process.  The  trinity  arrived  at  is  that  of  Montanism  or 
Sabellianism,  rather  than  that  of  the  Church."— Religionsphilosophie,  iii.  p.  21 
(Eng.  trans.).  A  good  criticism  of  Beyschlag's  Trinitarian  view  may  be  seen  in 
Dorner,  Syst.  of  Doct.  iii.  pp.  258-260. 

spfleiderer  explains  the  Holy  Spirit  rationalistically  as  "the  arrival  of  the 
Divine  reason  at  supremacy  in  our  hQd,xV—ReUgionsphilosophie,  iii.  p.  305. 


5i8  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII. 

Testament  idea  of  Fatherhood.  Then  the  personality  is  made  to  reside 
only  in  the  first  principle.  God  as  Father  is  personal ;  the  other  two 
potencies  (Logos  and  Spirit)  are  not  personal.  Further,  in  this  Trinity 
there  is  no  room  for  the  Son.  The  Divine  second  principle  is  named 
"  Logos,"  not  "  Son," — the  Son  comes  into  being  with  Jesus  Christ.  We 
have,  therefore,  the  contradiction  of  an  Eternal  Father  without  an  Eternal 
Son ;  the  Logos  is  not  the  Son  of  the  Trinitarian  formula.  The  first 
and  third  members  in  this  formula  are  truly  Divine — one  personal,  the 
other  impersonal ;  the  middle  member  is  personal,  but  not  truly  Divine. 
The  ordinary  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  may  be  difficult,  but  it  certainly  is 
more  coherent  and  less  contradictory  than  this  of  Nitzsch's,  which  seems 
to  originate  rather  in  a  desire  to  keep  in  touch  with  ecclesiastical 
phraseology,  than  in  any  real  need  arising  out  of  its  author's  Christology 
or  Pneumatology. 

Dr.  Dorner  is  a  powerful  defender  of  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  yet  it  is 
doubtful  whether  in  his  later  views  he  has  not  surrendered  the  only 
basis  on  which  this  doctrine  can  be  consistently  maintained.  In  his 
History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  Dr.  Dorner  goes  on  the 
view  (or  seems  to  do  so)  of  a  Trinity  of  personal  distinctions  (cf.  e.g.  his 
remarks  on  Hegel's  theory  in  vol.  v.  p.  150).  In  his  System  of  Doctrine, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  abandons  this  ground,  and  falls  back  on  a  Trinity 
of  impersonal  modes — momenta  in  the  constitution  of  the  one  Divine 
Personality.  The  Hypostases  are  to  be  thought  of  as  "  the  eternal  points 
of  mediation  of  the  Absolute  Divine  Personality" — as  "intermediate 
between  attributes  and  Egoity  and  Personality"  (i.  pp.  382,  383,  Eng. 
trans.) ;  as  "  not  of  themselves  and  singly  personal,"  but  as  having  "  a 
share  in  the  one  Divine  Personality  in  their  own  manner"  (p.  448). 
As  against  a  view  which  would  make  the  Divine  Hypostases  "three 
severed  subjects,  with  separate  self- consciousness,  and  divided  self- 
determination,"  this  has  perhaps  its  truth.  But  Dr.  Dorner  evidently 
so  regards  these  momenta  of  the  Divine  Personality  that  neither  is  the 
Father  a  Person,  nor  the  Son  a  Person,  nor  the  Spirit  a  Person  ;  but  the 
three  constitute  together  the  One  Personality,  or  Divine  self-consciousness. 
There  is  not  such  a  distinction  between  Father  and  Son  as  could  be 
expressed  by  the  pronouns  I  and  Thou.  The  strained  character  of  this 
construction  is  seen  in  the  attempt  to  retain  the  names  Father  and  Son 
for  these  internal  modes  of  the  Divine  self-consciousness.  It  is  not,  it 
is  to  be  observed,  the  completed  Personality  who  is  the  Father,  and  the 
historical  Christ  who  is  the  Son  ;  but  Father  is  the  name  for  the  first 
"point  of  mediation,"  Son  for  the  second  point.  Spirit  for  the  third, 
in  the  one  self-consciousness.  But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  can  an 
impersonal  moment  in  a  process  be  described  as  Father,  or  how  can  an 
impersonal  principle  be  described  as  Son  ? 

In  accordance  with  this  view.  Dr.  Dorner  does  not  admit  that  a 
personal  Divine  Being  became  incarnate  in  Christ,  but  only  that  a 
principle  incorporated  itself  with  the  humanity  derived  from  the 
virgin  (iii.  p.  163).  "God  as  Logos,  as  that  special  eternal  mode  of 
being  of  the  Deity,  unites  Himself  perfectly  and  indissolubly  with 
Jesus,  and  thus  may  be  said  to  have  become  man  in  Him,  because  as 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VI L  519 

Logos  He  has  His  being,  His  perfect  Eevelation  in  this  man,  and  has 
become  a  living  unity  with  this  man"  (iii.  p.  303).  Christ  is  not 
simply  human  or  simply  Divine,  but  the  Divine  and  human  natures 
coalesce  to  form  a  "  God-human  Ego  "  or  personality  (pp.  308,  309).  Here, 
again,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  Dr.  Dorner's  theory  leaves  the  Divinity 
ot  Christ  in  an  exceedingly  ambiguous  position.  He  is  constantly 
objecting  to  the  orthodox  doctrine  that  it  imperils  the  integrity  of  the 
humanity  of  Christ— makes  it  unlike  ours.  But  what  of  his  own  theory 
of  Christ's  peculiarly  constituted  Personality?  Either  it  must  be  held 
that  this  union  of  the  Divine  principle  with  His  humanity  is  akin 
in  character  to  that  which  takes  place  in  every  believer— in  which  case 
his  ground  is  taken  away  for  asserting  a  sole  and  exclusive  Divinity  for 
Christ ;  or  it  ceases  to  be  a  truly  human  person  (as,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  not  a  Divine  Person),  and  can  only  be  thought  of  as  a  tertium  quid, 
a  peculiar  product  of  the  union  of  Divine  and  human  factors.  The 
Church  doctrine  at  least  avoids  this  ambiguity  by  saying  boldly — it  is  a 
Divine  Person  who  appears  in  humanity,— one  who  submits  Himself  to 
the  conditions  of  humanity,  yet  in  origin  and  essence  is  eternal  and 
Divine.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how,  on  Dr.  Dorner's  view,  Christ  should 
be  a  truly  Divine  being  ;  but  if  He  is  so— and  there  can  be  no  mistake 
about  Dr.  Dorner's  earnestness  of  conviction  on  the  subject — the  con- 
clusion cannot  be  avoided  that,  as  in  the  theories  of  Eothe  and  Beyschlag, 
a  new  Divine  Person  has  since  the  Incarnation  been  added  to  the  Godhead. 
There  was  but  one  Divine  Personality  before— not  the  Father,  but  the 
one  God,  constituted  through  the  three  "  modes  "  ;  there  is  now  a  second, 
as  the  result  of  the  Incarnation  of  one  of  these  modes — true  God  and 
Man.  Surely  the  mere  statement  of  such  a  view  is  sufficient  to  show  its 
untenableness. 

III.  Neo-Sahellian  Theories,  which  resolve  the  Trinity  into  aspects  of  the 
Divine  in  the  process  of  its  self-manifestation  or  Eevelation.  The  ground 
is  abandoned  of  an  immanent  or  ontological  Trinity,  and  the  names 
Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  are  taken  but  as  expressions  for  the  phases  of 
the  Divine  self- manifestation  in  nature  or  grace.  Schleiermacher 
inclines  to  this  view  (Der  christ.  Glauhe,  sects.  170-172),  and  we  have 
seen  that  theories  like  Eothe's  and  Nitzsch's  tend  to  pass  over  into  it. 
The  Eitschlian  theologians  have  no  alternative  but  to  adopt  it.  It  is  a 
view  which  will  always  have  a  certain  popularity,  seeming,  as  it  does, 
to  evade  metaphysical  subtleties,  while  giving  a  plausible,  easily 
apprehended  interpretation  of  the  Trinitarian  formula.  Its  simplicity, 
however,  is  all  upon  the  surface.  The  moment  it  is  touched  with  the 
finger  of  criticism,  its  inadequacy  is  revealed. 

The  forms  of  these  Neo-Sabellian  theories  are  as  varied  as  the  minds 
that  produce  them.  We  may  distinguish,  first,  certain  popular  forms. 
The  old  Sabellianism  confined  itself  to  the  stadia  of  Eevelation  (the  Father 
in  the  Law,  the  Son  in  the  Incarnation,  the  Spirit  in  the  Church).  In 
modern  times  we  have  a  wide  variety  of  triads — God  as  Creator, 
Eedeemer,  and  Sanctifier ;  God  in  Creation  (Father),  in  Christ  (Son), 
in  the  inward  fellowship  of  believers  (Spirit) ;  God  in  nature  (Father), 


520  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII. 

in  history  (Son),  in  conscience  (Spirit)  ;  God  in  Himself  (Father),  as 
revealed  (Son),  as  the  principle  of  inward  communion  (Spirit),  etc. 
A  common  feature  in  nearly  all  these  triads  is  the  identification  of  God 
as  Creator  with  the  Father  ;  or  again,  God  in  His  absolute,  self-enclosed 
being,  is  viewed  as  the  Father.  But  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that 
it  is  not  peculiarly  as  Creator  that  God,  in  the  Christian  view,  is 
revealed  as  the  Father.  Creation  is  not  the  Eevelation  of  God's 
Fatherhood.  It  is  in  Christ  only  that  the  Fatherhood  of  God  is 
perfectly  revealed  (Matt.  xi.  27).  We  know  the  Father  through  the 
Son.  Still  less  does  Fatherhood,  in  the  Christian  sense,  denote  God 
in  the  depths  of  His  absoluteness.  The  truth  in  these  views  is  that  the 
Son  is  the  principle  of  Eevelation  in  the  Godhead  ;  that  the  Father, 
apart  from  the  Son,  is  undisclosed  and  unrevealed.  But  that  to  which 
the  Son  leads  us  back  in  God  is  a  true  Fatherhood  of  knowledge,  love, 
and  will.  The  second  criticism  to  be  made  on  these  theories  is  that 
they  do  not  give  us  a  truly  Divine  Trinity  of  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit. 
Whether  the  Son  is  identified  with  the  "  world,"  or  with  "  humanity," 
or  with  "  Christ,"  the  second  member  of  the  Trinity  is  not  Divine  as  the 
first  and  third  are.  It  is  not  God  who  is  the  Son,  but  the  (non-Divine) 
Son  reveals  God.  This,  it  may  be  observed,  is  a  principal  distinction 
between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  Sabellianisms.  The  old  Sabellianism 
sought  to  hold  by  a  real  Godhead  of  Christ,  though  it  failed  in  doing  so. 
It  was  the  same  God,  according  to  it,  who,  in  the  old  dispensation, 
revealed  Himself  as  Father,  who  afterwards  became  incarnate  as  Son, 
and  later  was  manifested  as  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church.  The  defects 
of  this  view  were  glaring ;  for  if  the  phases  were,  as  the  Sabellians 
held,  successive,  then  the  one  God  ceased  to  be  Father  before  He  became 
Son,  and  had  ceased  to  be  Son  before  He  became  Spirit.  Then  Father 
and  Son  are  terms  without  meaning.  But,  further,  in  ceasing  to  be 
Son,  the  Divine  must  be  supposed  to  have  left  the  humanity  of  Christ. 
Thus  the  reality  of  the  Incarnation  is  again  denied.^  We  have  only  a 
temporary  union  of  the  Godhead  with  the  man  Christ  Jesus.  In  the 
Neo-Sabellianisms,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Person  of  Christ  is  regarded 
as  Divine  only  in  a  figurative  and  improper  way,  i.e.  as  the  bearer  of  a 
Divine  Eevelation,  or  in  an  ethical  sense  ;  and  the  successive  phases  of 
the  Divine  self-manifestation  are  not  regarded  as  necessarily  sublating 
each  other ;  i.e.  God  remains  Father,  while  revealed  as  Son,  while 
manifested  as  Spirit. 

Kaftan's  view  of  the  Trinity  in  his  I)as  Wesen  der  christ.  Religion 
does  not  rise  above  a  Trinity  of  Eevelation  or  manifestation.  "The 
Christian  believes  in  God,"  he  says,  "the  supra- terrestrial  Lord  of  the 
world,  who  was  from  the  beginning,  and  is  in  eternity.  He  believes  in 
the  Godhead  of  Jesus,  the  historical  Founder  of  our  religion,  in  whom 
God  has  revealed  Himself,  through  whom  God  has  entered  into  that 
relation  to  mankind  which  from  eternity  He  had  in  view.  He  believes 
in  a  power  of  the  Divine  Spirit  in  the  history  of  mankind  which,  since 
the  appearance  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  more  precisely  since  His  resurrection 

1  Or  reduced  to  a  mere  theophany.  Ancient  Sabellianism  spoke  of  an  absorption 
even  of  the  humanity  of  Christ. 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VJI.  521 

from  the  dead,  has  come  to  its  perfection  in  Christendom,  and  which 
transplants  the  man,  who  allows  himself  to  be  possessed  by  it,  into 
the  blessed  fellowship  of  the  Divine  life.  But  still  it  is  one  God  in 
whom  he  believes.  .  .  .  How  can  this  be  otherwise  brought  to  a  single 
expression  than  by  designating  the  Christian  faith  in  God  as  the  faith  in 
a  three-one  God.  The  Christian  has  and  knows  God  only  through 
Christ  in  the  Holy  Spirit"  (p.  388).  "Understood  in  a  Christian  sense, 
God  is  personal  Spirit ;  as  such  we  find  Him  in  the  historical  personal 
life  of  Jesus  Christ ;  as  such  we  believe  in  Him  ruling  in  history  ;  this  is 
the  signification  of  the  Christian  faith  in  the  three-one  God"  (p.  390, 
first  edition).  This  is  a  much  higher  position  than  the  ordinary 
Ritschlian  one  [note  the  emphatic  assertion  of  Christ's  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  and  the  connection  of  this  with  the  mission  of  the  Spirit]. 
The  crucial  point  is  the  affirmation  of  Christ's  Divinity.  Now,  what- 
ever this  means  to  Kaftan,  it  is  certain  it  does  not  mean  the  entrance 
into  time  of  a  pre-existing  Divine  Being ;  nor  would  he  allow  the  in- 
ference to  a  personal  distinction  in  the  Godhead  as  the  ground  of  the 
Incarnation  (p.  391).  His  Trinitarian  doctrine,  therefore,  does  not  mean 
more  than  that  God  has  a  super-earthly  mode  of  being,  that  He  has 
revealed  Himself  historically  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  He  has  wrought 
since  as  a  spiritual  power  in  the  hearts  of  men.  He  refuses,  indeed,  to 
admit  that  this  is  a  mere  economical  Trinity.  The  Revelation,  he  says, 
expresses  the  essence.  But  Sabellianism  never  denied  that  there  was  that 
in  God  which  determined  the  modes  of  His  self -revelation,  or  that  to 
this  extent  they  expressed  His  nature.  Kaftan's  midway  position  is 
untenable.  Either  he  must  deal  earnestly  with  the  "Godhead"  of 
Christ,  which  he  so  strenuously  maintains,  and  then  he  can  hardly  avoid 
moving  back  on  personal  distinctions ;  or  holding  to  his  modal  view 
of  the  Trinity,  he  will  find  it  increasingly  difficult  to  regard  Christ  as 
truly  Divine. 


NOTE   B. 

DR.   MARTINEAU   AS   A   TRINITARIAN. 

Dr.  Martineau  advocating  Trinitarianism  is  a  veritable  Saul  among 
tlie  prophets.  Yet  this  is  the  drift  of  his  striking  essay  (first  published 
as  late  as  1886)  on  "  A  Way  Out  of  the  Trinitarian  Controversy."  The 
object  of  the  essay  is  to  find  a  way  of  reconciling  the  differences  of 
Unitarians  and  Trinitarians,  which  Dr.  Martineau  thinks  might  be 
accomplished  if  parties  only  came  better  to  understand  each  other.  He 
says  with  great  truth,  "  Religious  doctrine  may  be  only  theory  to  the 
critic,  but  it  is  the  expression  of  fact  to  the  believer— fact  infinite  and 
ever  present,  the  vital  breath  of  every  moment,  deprived  of  which  the 
soul  must  gasp  and  die.  ...  It  is  from  the  depth  of  such  natures  that 
theology  and  churches  arise  ;  and  if  you  would  harmonise  them  when 
they  seem  discordant,  you  must  descend  into  the  depths  ;  you  must  feel 
their  truth  ere  you  criticise  their  errors,  and  appreciate  their  difference 


522  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  VIL 

before  you  can  persuade  them  that  they  are  one.  ...  To  feel  charity 
towards  a  sin,  you  must  understand  the  temptation  ;  towards  a  sorrow, 
you  must  know  its  depth  ;  towards  an  erring  creed,  you  must  appreciate 
its  meaning  and  its  ground  "  (Essays,  ii.  pp.  526,  527).  In  this  spirit  he 
aims  at  setting  forth  what  he  conceives  to  be  the  truth  about  the 
Trinity. 

The  intention  is  excellent,  but  the  success  of  the  attempt  must  be 
pronounced  doubtful.  It  is,  however,  exceedingly  interesting  as  coming 
from  Dr.  Martineau.  For  his  thought  leads  him  to  recognise  a  certain 
real  Trinitarian  distinction  in  God  ;  and,  so  far  as  one  can  judge,  he 
does  not  object  even  to  Trinitarians  speaking  of  these  distinctions  as  in  a 
sense  personal.  The  gist  of  his  view  is  expressed  in  the  following 
passages  :  "  God  then,  as  He  exists  in  Himself  ere  He  at  all  appears, — 
God,  alone  with  the  void, — God  as  a  still  presence, — a  starless  night,  a 
dumb  immensity  of  intellect,  is  intended  by  the  First  Person  in  the 
received  creed.  Let  now  the  silence  be  broken,  let  the  thought  burst 
into  expression,  fling  out  the  poem  of  creation,  evolving  its  idea  in 
the  drama  of  history,  and  reflecting  its  own  image  in  the  soul  of  man  ; 
then  this  manifested  phase  of  the  Divine  existence  is  the  Son.  .  .  .  The 
one  fundamental  idea  by  which  the  two  personalities  are  meant  to  be 
distinguished  is  simply  this — that  the  first  is  God  in  His  primeval 
essence, — infinite  meaning  without  finite  indications ;  the  second  is 
God  speaking  out  in  phenomena  and  fact,  and  leaving  His  sign  whenever 
anything  comes  up  from  the  deep  of  things,  or  merges  back  again.  .  .  . 
Eespecting  the  Third  Person  in  the  Trinity,  and  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  .  .  .  the  separation  of  His  personality  from  the  others,  as 
not  proper  to  be  merged  in  them,  is  founded  on  a  feeling  deep  and  true, 
viz.  that  the  human  spirit  is  not  a  mere  part  of  nature.  .  .  .  We  are 
persuaded  of  something  diviner  within  us  than  this — akin  in  freedom, 
in  power,  in  love,  to  the  supreme  Mind  Himself.  In  virtue  of  this 
prerogative,  we  have  to  be  otherwise  provided  for,  in  our  highest  life, 
than  the  mere  products  of  creative  order;  we  need,  not  control,  simply 
to  be  imposed  and  obeyed,  but  living  communion,  like  with  like,  spirit 
with  spirit.  To  open  this  communion,  to  bring  this  help  and  sympathy, 
to  breathe  on  the  fading  consciousness  of  our  heavenly  aflinity,  and 
make  us  one  with  the  Father  and  the  Son,  is  the  function,  truly  of  a 
(|uite  special  kind,  reserved  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  for  the  Holy 
Ghost.  What  God  is  in  Himself ;  what  He  is  as  manifested  in  the 
universe  and  history,  brought  to  a  focus  in  the  drama  of  Redemption  ; 
what  He  is  in  communion  with  our  inner  spirit :  these  are  the  three 
points  of  view  denoted  by  the  '  Persons '  of  the  Trinity  "  (pp.  332, 334,  335). 
The  "  Eternal  Sonship  "  he  connects  with  the  doctrine  of  eternal  creation. 
The  most  paradoxical  part  of  the  essay  is  where  he  seeks  to  prove  that 
the  Unitarians,  while  imagining  they  were  worshipping  the  "Father," 
have  all  the  while  been  worshipping  the  "Son" — that  the  Father  "is 
really  absent  from  the  Unitarian  Creed  "  (p.  536). 

After  the  remarks  in  last  note,  it  is  not  necessary  to  say  much  in 
criticism  of  this  theory.  It  is,  after  all,  only  a  modal  theory — the  sub- 
stitution of  "  phases  "  and  "  points  of  view  "  for  the  orthodox  "  Persons." 


AZOTES  TO  LECTURE  VII,  523 

The  distinction  of  "  Father "  and  "  Son  "  is  that  of  the  hidden  and  the 
revealed  God  ;  and  the  "  Son "  has  His  raison  d'itre  in  the  existence  of  a 
world.  There  is  no  room  for  a  special  Incarnation.  The  "Son"  is 
manifested  in  Jesus  not  otherwise  than  He  is  manifested  in  all  history — 
only  in  higher  (or  highest)  degree.  But  it  has  already  been  pointed 
out  that  this  identification  of  the  "Father"  with  God  in  Himself, 
"dormant  potency,"  "still  presence,"  "dumb  immensity  of  intellect," 
has  no  resemblance  to  the  Christian  idea  of  the  Father.  Dr.  Martineau 
goes  here  on  an  altogether  wrong  track.  His  theory  does  not  express 
the  Christian  facts. 


NOTE    TO     LECTUEE    VIII. 


NOTE  A. 

THE   GERM   THEORY   OF  JUSTIFICATION. 

This  subtle  theory  of  justification,  according  to  which  the  manifoldly 
imperfect  believer  is  accepted  on  the  ground  of  his  germinal  holiness, — 
"  for  in  the  first  moment,"  as  Schleiermacher  says,  "  the  whole  develop- 
ment is  implicitly  given  "  (p.  105), — is  not  without  many  advocates.  Its 
phraseology  is  found  in  some  who  are  far  from  wishing  to  remove  the 
ground  of  acceptance  from  the  doing  and  suffering  of  Christ ;  and  it  finds 
favour  with  others  who  reject  this  objective  ground,  and  need  another 
explanation. 

Dr.  M'Leod  Campbell  finds  this  view  in  Luther,  whose  doctrine  he 
expounds  thus — "  secondly,  because  this  excellent  condition  of  faith  is  in 
us  but  a  germ— a  grain  of  mustard-seed — a  feeble  dawn,  God,  in  imputing 
it  as  righteousness,  has  respect  unto  that  of  which  it  is  the  dawn — of 
which,  as  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  Christ  in  us,  it  is  the  promise,  and 
in  which  it  shall  issue"  {Nat.  of  Atonement^  p.  34  (4th  ed.)).  There 
is  no  doubt  that  some  of  Luther's  expressions  in  the  Commentari/  on 
Galatians  give  colour  to  this  statement.  E.g.  "  Wherefore  Christ  appre- 
hended by  faith,  and  dwelling  in  the  heart,  is  the  true  Christian 
righteousness,  for  the  which  God  counteth  us  righteous,  and  giveth  us 
eternal  life"  (on  ii.  16).  "We  conclude,  therefore,  upon  these  words, 
'It  was  imputed  to  him  for  righteousness,'  that  righteousness  indeed 
beginneth  through  faith,  and  by  the  same  we  have  the  first-fruits  of  the 
Spirit ;  but  because  faith  is  weak,  it  is  not  made  perfect  without  God's 
imputation.  Wherefore  faith  beginneth  righteousness,  but  imputation 
maketh  it  perfect  unto  the  day  of  Christ.  .  .  .  For  these  two  things 
work  Christian  righteousness  ;  faith  in  the  heart,  which  is  a  gift  of  God, 
and  assuredly  believeth  in  Christ ;  and  also  that  God  accepteth  this 
imperfect  faith  for  perfect  righteousness,  for  Christ's  sake,  in  whom  I 
have  begun  to  believe "  (on  iii.  6).  No  one  can  doubt,  however,  taking 
the  general  drift  of  the  Commentary,  that  in  Luther's  view  the  sole 
objective  ground  of  the  sinner's  pardon  and  acceptance  is  the  cross  and 
righteousness  of  Christ. 

In  a  similar  way  Martensen  expresses  himself — "For  faith  is  like 
the  grain  of  mustard-seed,  a  small,  insignificant,  but  fructifying  seed 


NOTE  TO  LECTURE  VIII.  525" 

corn,  which  contains  within  it  the  fulness  of  a  whole  future.  In  His 
gracious  contemplation  God  beholds  in  the  seed  corn  the  future  fruit 
of  blessedness  ;  in  the  pure  will,  the  realised  ideal  of  freedom  "  {Dogmatics, 
p.  392).  Yet  Martensen  is  emphatic  in  declaring — "The  evangelical 
Church  teaches  that  Christ  alone,  received  by  faith,  is  the  Righteousness 
of  man ;  and  thus  she  leads  man  back  from  what  is  imperfect  and 
multifarious  to  One  who  is  Himself  perfection  ;  she  brings  him  back 
from  his  wanderings  in  the  desert  to  the  pure  Fountain  where  freedom 
springs  from  grace  ;  to  the  holy  centre  where  God  looks  upon  man,  not  in 
the  light  of  the  temporal  and  finite,  but  in  the  light  of  Christ's  eternity 
and  perfection"  (p.  393). 

There  is  no  question  of  the  truth  of  the  view  in  itself  that,  as  Martensen 
further  says,  "  Justifying  faith  cannot  possibly  exist  in  the  soul  in  a 
dead  or  merely  stationary  condition,  but  that,  like  the  living,  fruit-bearing 
seed  corn,  it  contains  within  itself  a  mighty  germinating  power  which 
must  necessarily  beget  a  holy  development  of  life"  (p.  393),  and  that 
God  sees  in  this  germinal  holiness  all  that  is  to  proceed  from  it,  and  even, 
if  we  please,  imputes  to  the  believer  anticipatively  the  yet  future  result. 
But  confusion  is  introduced  if  we  confound  or  exchange  this  with  the 
sinner's  justification.  The  imputation  in  question  is  not  in  order  to 
acceptance,  but  is  a  mode  of  contemplating  the  fruition  of  holiness  in 
'persons  already  accepted.  It  is  an  act  of  the  Divine  complacency  in  and 
towards  believers  already  justified  and  adopted  on  the  sole  and  all- 
suflScient  ground  of  Christ's  work  done  on  their  behalf. 

This  view,  translated  into  their  own  peculiar  phraseology,  is  naturally 
the  one  adopted  by  idealistic  writers  who  treat  of  religion.  Kant  led  the 
way  here  when,  in  rationalising  the  doctrine  of  justification,  he  represented 
it  as  meaning  that,  for  the  sake  of  our  faith  in  the  moral  good,  we  are 
already  held  to  be  what,  while  on  earth,  and  perhaps  in  any  future 
world,  we  are  no  more  than  about  to  become  {Religion  inn^rhalb  der  Grenxen 
der  bloss.  Vernunft,  Bk.  II.  sec.  3).  I  quote  two  illustrative  passages  from 
Mr.  Bradley  and  Mr.  T.  H.  Green. 

"  Justification  by  faith  means,"  says  Mr.  Bradley,  "  that,  having  thus 
identified  myself  with  the  object,  I  feel  myself  in  that  identification  to 
be  already  one  with  it,  and  to  enjoy  the  bliss  of  being,  all  falsehood 
(jvercome,  what  I  truly  am.  By  my  claim  to  be  one  with  the  ideal, 
which  comprehends  me  too,  and  by  assertion  of  the  non-reality  of  all 
that  is  opposed  to  it,  the  evil  in  the  world  and  the  evil  incarnate  in  me 
through  past  bad  acts,  all  this  falls  into  the  unreal ;  I  being  one  with  the 
ideal,  this  is  not  mine,  and  so  imputation  of  offences  goes  with  the  change 
of  self,  and  applies  not  now  to  my  true  self,  but  to  the  unreal,  which  I 
repudiate  and  hand  over  to  destruction.  .  .  .  Because  the  ideal  is  not 
realised  completely  and  truly  as  the  ideal,  therefore  I  am  not  justified  by 
the  works,  which  issue  from  faith,  as  works  ;  since  they,remain  imperfect. 
I  am  justified  solely  and  entirely  by  the  ideal  identification;  the 
existence  of  which  in  me  is  on  the  other  hand  indicated  and  guaranteed 
by  works,  and  in  its  very  essence  implies  them."— Ethical  Studies,  pp. 
293-294. 

Mr.  Green  says  :   "  We  most  nearly  approach  the  Pauline  notion  of 


526  NOTE  TO  LECTURE  VIII. 

imputed  righteousness  when  we  say  that  it  is  a  righteousness  com- 
municated in  principle,  but  not  yet  developed  in  act." — Paper  on 
Justification  by  Faith,  in  JVorks,  iii.  p.  202, 

In  the  former  of  these  extracts  (as  also  in  Mr.  Green's  own  view)  we 
are  away  from  the  historical  Christ  altogether,  and  have  to  deal  only 
with  "ideals,"  in  relation  to  which  we  pass  an  act  of  judgment  on 
ourselves  in  accordance  with  the  metaphysical  truth  of  things,  and  there 
is  neither  room  nor  need  for  a  special  justifying  act  of  God. 


NOTES    TO    LECTUEE    IX. 


NOTE  A. 

KENAN'S  ESCHATOLOGY, 


Hartm ANN'S  tlieory  of  cosmic  suicide  by  the  concurrent  decision  of  the 
race  is  bizarre  enough,  but  it  is  outdone  by  the  extraordinary  eschatology 
sketched  by  M.  Renan  in  his  Dialogues  et  Fragments  Philosophiques, 
which,  apparently,  though  he  heads  the  section  "  Dreams,"  it  is  not  his 
intention  that  we  should  take  otherwise  than  seriously.  It  is  a  curious 
further  illustration  of  how  every  theorist  feels  the  need  of  some  kind  of 
eschatology,  as  well  as  of  the  lengths  to  which  credulity  will  go  in  minds 
that  deem  themselves  too  wise  to  accept  Eevelation.  In  Kenan's  view  the 
great  business  in  which  the  universe  is  engaged  is  that  of  organising 
God.i  God  as  yet  only  exists  in  ideal ;  the  time  will  come  when  He 
will  be  materially  realised  in  a  consciousness  analogous  to  that  of 
liumanity,  only  infinitely  superior  (p.  78).  The  universe  will  culminate 
in  a  single  conscious  centre,  in  which  the  conception  of  personal  Mono- 
theism will  become  a  truth.  An  omniscient,  omnipotent  being  will  be 
the  last  term  of  the  God  -  making  evolution  {revolution  deifique) ;  the 
universe  will  be  consummated  in  a  single  organised  being— the  resultant 
of  milliards  of  beings  whose  lives  are  summed  up  in  his— the  harmony, 
the  sum-total  of  the  universe  (pp.  125,  126).  The  climax  of  absurdity  is 
reached  in  the  notion  that  the  personal  Deity  thus  realised  proceeds,  now 
that  he  has  come  into  existence,  to  raise  the  dead  and  hold  a  general 
judgment !  M.  Renan  may  be  allowed  here  to  speak  for  himself — 
"  Yes,  I  conceive  the  possibility  of  the  resurrection,  and  often  say  to 
myself  with  Job,  Eeposita  est  hcec  spes  in  sinu  meo.  If  ever  at  the  end 
of  the  successive  evolutions  the  universe  is  led  back  to  a  single,  absolute 
being,  this  being  will  be  the  complete  life  of  all ;  he  will  renew  in 
himself  the  life  of  beings  who  have  vanished,  or,  if  you  will,  in  his  bosom 
will  revive  all  those  who  have  ever  been.  "When  God  shall  be  at  once 
perfect  and  all-powerful,  that  is  to  say,  when  scientific  omnipotence  shall 
be  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  good  and  just  being,  this  being  will 
wish  to  resuscitate  the  past  in  order  to  repair  its  innumerable  injustices. 
God  will  exist  more  and  more  ;  the  more  he  exists,  the  more  just  he  will 
be.  He  will  attain  to  this  fully  on  the  day  when  whoever  has  wrought 
1  This  is  not  among  the  "  Dreams,"  but  among  the  "  Probabilities  "  (pp.  78,  79). 


528  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IX. 

for  the  Divine  work  shall  feel  that  the  Divine  work  is  finished,  and  shall 
see  the  part  he  has  had  in  it.  Then  the  eternal  inequality  of  beings  shall 
be  sealed  for  ever,"  etc.  (pp.  435,  436).  Comment  on  such  "  dreams "  is 
needless.  Yet  the  spinning  of  such  theories  by  a  cultured  intellect  which 
has  parted  with  its  faith  is  not  without  its  lessons. 


NOTE  B. 

THE   GOSPEL   AND   THE   VASTNESS   OF   CREATION. 

An  interesting  article  on  the  subject  treated  of  in  the  Lecture  is  con- 
tributed to  the  Contemporary  Review  for  April  1889,  by  the  late  Prof. 
Freeman,  under  the  title— "  Christianity  and  the  'Geocentric'  System." 
The  article  is  full  of  suggestive  and  acute  remarks.  Prof.  Freeman 
states  the  objection  in  its  full  strength.  "It  is  unreasonable,  it  is 
urged,  to  believe  that  such  a  scheme  as  that  of  Christianity,  implying 
such  awful  mysteries  and  so  tremendous  a  sacrifice,  can  have  been 
devised  for  the  sole  benefit  of  such  an  insignificant  part  of  the  universe 
as  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants"  (p.  541).  He  does  not,  however,  think 
there  is  much  in  it.  "If  it  is  meant,"  he  says,  "not  merely  as  a 
rhetorical  point,  but  as  a  serious  objection,  it  really  comes  to  this  :  we 
cannot  believe  that  so  much  has  been  done  for  this  earth  as  Christianity 
teaches,  because  this  earth  is  so  little  ;  if  this  earth  were  only  bigger,  then 
we  might  believe  it.  .  .  .  Surely  nobody  ever  believed  or  disbelieved  on 
this  kind  of  ground.  An  objection  of  this  kind  is  a  rhetorical  point, 
and  nothing  more"  (p.  542).  As  a  rhetorical  point,  nevertheless,  he 
grants  that  it  is  telling,  and  proceeds  to  deal  with  it  for  what  it  is  worth. 
He  points  out,  first,  how  little  the  change  from  the  "  geocentric  "  view  has 
done  to  alter  the  general  tenor  of  our  thoughts  and  feelings.  It  is  not 
the  case  that  the  "geocentric"  view  led  man  to  take  an  exaggerated 
view  of  his  own  importance.  On  the  contrary,  the  sight  of  the  starry 
heavens,  even  when  looked  at  with  "  geocentric "  eyes,  has  always  been 
to  make  man  feel  his  littleness  (Ps.  viii.).  "The  truth  is  that  the 
objection  attributes  to  scientific  theories  a  great  deal  more  practical 
influence  than  really  belongs  to  them.  Whether  the  earth  goes  round 
the  sun,  or  the  sun  goes  round  the  earth,  does  not  make  the  least 
practical  difference  to  our  general  feelings,  to  our  general  ways  of  looking 
at  things.  .  .  .  We  are  all  '  heliocentric '  when  we  stop  to  think  about  it 
.  .  .  but  I  suspect  most  of  us  are  '  geocentric '  in  practice.  That  is,  we 
not  only  talk  as  if  the  sun  really  rose  and  set,  but  for  all  practical 
purposes  we  really  think  so.  .  .  .  Nobody  really  accepts  or  rejects  the 
Christian  religion  or  any  other  religion,  merely  through  thinking  whether 
the  sun  is  so  many  thousands  or  millions  of  times  bigger  than  the  earth, 
or  whether  it  is  only  the  size  of  a  cart-wheel,  or,  at  the  outside,  about  the 
bigness  of  Peloponnesus  "  (p.  544).  Next,  he  touches  the  question  whether 
we  have  any  reason  to  suppose  that  other  worlds  are  inhabited. 
"  Astronomers  do  not  even  attempt  to  tell  us  for  certain  whether  even 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IX.  529 

he  other  members  of  our  own  system  are   inhabited   or  not.  ...  I 
believe  I  am  right  in  saying  that  they  tell  us  that  Mars  is  the  only  planet 
of  our  system  where  men  like  ourselves  could  live ;  that,  if  the  other 
planets  are  inhabited,  it  must  be  by  beings  of  a  very  different  nature 
from  ours"  (p.  545).     But  the  peculiar  part  of  his  argument,  developed 
with  great  ingenuity  and  force,  is  a  working  out  of  the  idea  that  it  is,  after 
all,  quite  in  accordance  with  analogy  that  our  world  should  be  a  very 
small  one,  and  yet  should  play  a  most  important  part  in  the  universe. 
Here  the  analogies  of  his  own  science  of  history  furnish  him  with 
abundant  illustration.     "  If  it  should  be  true  that  our  earth  does  hold 
a  kind  of  moral  place  in  the  universe  out  of  all  proportion  to  its 
physical  size,  the  fact  will  be  one  of  exactly  the  same  kind  as  the  fact 
that  so  small  a  continent  as  Europe  was  chosen  to  play  the  foremost  part 
in  the  world's  history,  and  that  so  small  a  part  of  Europe  as  Greece  was 
chosen  to  play  the  foremost  part  in  Europe "  (p.  658).     Incidentally,  in 
developing  this  argument,  he  refers  to  the  fact  noticed  in  the  Lecture, 
that  the  past  history  of  our  own  world  takes  away  in  large  part  the 
force  of  the  argument  from  the  vast  empty  spaces  of  creation.     "  Here 
both  the  certain  facts  of   geology    and    the    less   certain  doctrine  of 
evolution,  instead  of  standing  in  the  way  of  the  argument,  give  it  no 
small  help.    .    .    .    We  know  that  our  own  world  remained  in  this 
seemingly  useless  and  empty  state  for  untold  ages  ;  there  is  therefore  at 
least  no  absurdity  in  supposing  that  other  worlds,  some  or  all  of  them, 
are  in  the  same  state  still.  .  .  .  The  past  emptiness  and  uselessness  of  the 
whole   planet,  the  abiding  emptiness  and  seeming  uselessness  of  large 
jDarts  of  it,  certainly  go  a  long  way  to  get  rid  of  all  a  jpriori  objection  to 
the  possible  emptiness  and  seeming  uselessness  of  some   or  all  of  the 
other  bodies  that  make  up  the  universe"  (p.  548). 

A  lengthy  and  valuable  note  on  the  subject  will  likewise  be  found  in 
Dorner's  History  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Glirist,  vol.  v.  pp.  265-270. 
Dorner  reviews,  with  his  usual  thoroughness  and  learning,  the  opinions 
held  by  others,  but  finds  nothing  to  shake  his  confidence  in  the  Christian 
view.  "  Concerning  our  planet,  as  compared  with  a  thousand  others,  we 
must  say  that  it  is  the  Bethlehem  amongst  the  rest,  the  least  city  among 
the  thousands  in  Judah,  out  of  which  the  Lord  was  destined  to  proceed  " 
(p.  267).  He  reminds  us  that  Steffens  and  Hegel,  like  Whewell, 
"  regard  our  planetary  system  as  the  most  organised  spot  of  the  universe  ; 
the  earth,  this  consecrated  spot  on  which  the  Lord  appeared,  as  its 
absolute  centre,  which  both  Hegel  and  Becker  designate  the  Bethlehem 
of  worlds  "(p.  269). 

Ebrard  likewise  discusses  the  objection  in  his  Christian  Apologetics^ 
i.  p.  253  (Eng.  trans.).  Fiske,  in  his  little  book  on  Man's  Destiny,  is 
another  who  refers  to  it.  Chap.  i.  is  headed  "  Man's  Place  in  Nature,  as 
affected  by  the  Copernican  Theory."  He  concludes — "The  speculative 
necessity  for  man's  occupying  the  largest  and  most  central  spot  in  the 
universe  is  no  longer  felt.  It  is  recognised  as  a  primitive  and  childish 
notion.  With  our  larger  knowledge  we  see  that  these  vast  and  fiery  suns 
are  after  all  but  the  Titan-like  servants  of  the  little  planets  which  they 
bear  with  them  in  their  flight  through  the  abysses  of  space.  ...     He 

34 


530  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IX. 

who  tlius  looks  a  little  deeper  into  the  secrets  of  nature  than  his  fore- 
fathers of  the  sixteenth  century,  may  well  smile  at  the  quaint  conceit  that 
man  cannot  be  the  object  of  God's  care  unless  he  occupies  an  immovable 
position  in  the  centre  of  the  stellar  universe"  (pp.  16,  17). 

Finally,  I  may  refer  to  the  beautiful  treatment  of  the  higher  and  more 
spiritual  aspects  of  the  subject  by  Dr.  John  Ker  in  his  sermon  on  "  The 
Gospel  and  the  Magnitude  of  Creation"  {Sermons,  p.  227). 


NOTE  C. 

ALLEGED   PAULINE  UNIVERSALISM. 

The  two  strongest  passages  in  favour  of  Pauline  universalism  are 
undoubtedly  1  Cor.  xv.  21-28  and  Eph.  i.  10,  yet  the  ablest  exegetes 
concur  that  in  neither  can  Paul  be  held  to  teach  the  doctrine  of  universal 
salvation.  With  this  view  I  cannot  but  agree.  It  is  easy  to  read  such  a 
meaning  into  certain  of  Paul's  universalistic  expressions,  but  an  unbiassed 
study  of  the  passages  and  their  context  makes  it  plain  that  it  is  far  from 
the  apostle's  intention  to  affirm  any  such  doctrine.  As  respects  1  Cor.  xv. 
21-28,  we  have  first  the  statement — "  For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even  so  in 
Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive '"'  (ver.  22).  But  to  affirm  that  in  Christ  all 
shall  be  made  alive  is  a  very  different  thing  from  affirming  that  all  shall 
be  made  alive  in  Christ.  And  that  the  latter  is  not  the  apostle's  thought 
is  made  evident  from  the  next  verse,  which  declares  that  this  making 
alive  of  those  that  are  Christ's  takes  place  at  His  coming.  "  Each  in  his 
own  order  :  Christ  the  first-fruits  ;  then  they  that  are  Christ's,  at  His 
coming "  (ver.  23).  This  making  alive,  therefore,  is  the  making  alive  at 
the  resurrection  at  the  Parousia.  But  no  universalist  maintains  that  at 
that  period  "they  that  are  Christ's"  embraces  all  humanity.  The 
subsequent  clauses  are  not  more  decisive.  "  The  last  enemy  that  shall 
be  abolished  is  death"  (ver.  27)  ;  but  here  again  it  is  foreign  to  the  context 
to  suppose  that  Paul  has  in  view  any  other  abolition  of  death  than  that 
he  has  been  speaking  of  throughout  the  chapter,  viz.  its  abolition  at  the 
resurrection.  The  putting  down  of  all  (rival)  rule,  authority,  and 
power  (ver.  24),  the  putting  all  His  enemies  under  His  feet  (ver.  25), 
the  subjection  of  all  things  to  the  Son  (vers.  27,  28),  do  not  naturally 
suggest  reconciliation  or  conversion,  but  rather  forcible  subjugation — 
the  destruction  of  all  hostile  authority  and  influence.  In  this  sense, 
accordingly,  must  be  interpreted  the  final  expression — the  strongest  of 
all — "  that  God  may  be  all  in  all."  Meyer  observes — "  Olshausen  and 
De  Wette  find  here  the  doctrine  of  restoration  favoured  also  by  Neander, 
so  that  SI/  TToiai  would  apply  to  all  creatures,  in  whom  God  shall  be  the  all- 
determining  One.  .  .  .  The  fact  was  overlooked  that  su  'TrSe.at  refers  to  the 
members  of  the  kingdom  hitherto  ruled  over  by  Christ,  to  whom  the 
condemned,  who,  on  the  contrary,  are  outside  of  this  kingdom,  do  not 
belong,  and  that  the  continuance  of  the  condemnation  is  not  done  away 
even  with  the  subjugation  of  Satan,  since,  on  the  contrary,  the  latter 


NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IX.  531 

himself  by  his  subjugation  falls  under  condemnation"  {Gtm.  in  loc). 
Weiss  similarly  says:  "Even  the  context  of  this  passage  excludes  any 
referring  of  it  to  a  restitution  of  all  things  (Apokatastasis),  for  the 
dominion  which  God  henceforward  wields  immediately  can  be  no  other 
than  that  which  Christ  has  received  and  given  up  to  Him  ;  and  that 
does  not  consist  in  this,  that  all  hostile  powers  are  destroyed  or 
converted,  but  in  this,  that  they  have  become  powerless,  and  are  subject 
to  His  will"— Biblical  Theol,  ii.  p.  73  (Eng.  trans.). 

The  second  passage,  again,  Eph.  i.  10,  speaks  of  a  summing  up  of  all 
things  in  Christ  as  head  (I  agree  with  Weiss  that  there  is  no  need  for 
weakening  or  denying  the  force  of  the  composite  word)  in  the  dispensa- 
tion of  the  fulness  of  the  times— a  truly  wonderful  and  comprehensive 
expression.  The  rd.  '7r»vret  here  is  in  itself  quite  general, — all  created 
things  and  beings,— and  might  therefore  quite  well  suit  a  universalistic 
sense.  But,  first,  the  roi  tcxutu.  is  limited  by  the  succeeding  clause, — "  the 
things  in  the  heavens,  and  the  things  on  the  earth,"— which  excludes  the 
demoniacal  powers,  certainly  not  conceived  of  as  "  things  in  the  heavens"  ; 
and,  next,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  annulling  of  the  divided  state  of 
"things  on  earth"  is  effected  by  the  conversion  of  hostile  powers,  or 
not  rather  by  their  subjugation,  and  separation  from  the  holy  part  of 
the  creation.  This  is  a  question  to  be  determined  by  Paul's  general 
mode  of  thought,  and  Meyer  and  Weiss  agree  that  such  an  idea  as  the 
final  conversion  of  the  unbelieving  and  the  demons  is  not  within  his 
view.  "With  the  Parousia,"  says  Meyer,  "there  sets  in  the  full 
realisation,  which  is  the  ec-TroKXToiaTecffis  Trauruv  (Matt.  xix.  28  ;  Acts 
iii.  21  ;  2  Pet.  iii.  10  ff.)  ;  when  all  antichristian  natures  and  powers 
shall  be  discarded  out  of  heaven  and  earth,  so  that  thereafter  nothing 
in  heaven  or  upon  earth  shall  be  excluded  from  this  gathering  together 
again.  .  .  .  The  restoration  in  the  case  of  the  devils,  as  an  impossibility 
in  the  case  of  spirits  radically  opposed  to  God,  is  not  in  the  whole  New 
Testament  so  much  as  thought  of.  The  prince  of  this  world  is  only 
judged"  {Com.  in  loc,  and  Remark  2,  on  the  Doctrine  of  Restoration). 
"A  bringing  back  of  the  world  of  spirits  hostile  to  God,"  says  Weiss, — 
"  which,  moreover,  is  considered  as  definitely  bad, — is  as  far  away  from 
the  Biblical  view  as  is  also  a  need  of  Redemption  on  the  part  of  the  angel 
world,  and  therefore  the  author  felt  no  need  to  guard  his  expressions 
against  either  of  these  thoughts.  .  .  .  Enough  that  they  by  their  sub- 
jection to  Christ  are  stripped  of  any  power  which  can  hurt  the  absolute 
dominion  of  Christ"  {Biblical  Theul  of  N.  T.,  ii.  pp.  107, 109). 

The  one  thing  which  would  be  really  decisive  in  favour  of  a  uni- 
versalistic interpretation,  would  be  some  passage  from  Paul  (or  any  part 
of  the  New  Testament),  which  explicitly  affirmed  that  fallen  spirits  or 
lost  men  in  eternity  would  ultimately  repent  and  be  saved  ;  but  no 
such  expression  can  be  found.  Dr.  Cox  has  no  scruple  in  telling  us  that 
those  condemned  in  the  judgment  will  yet,  after  a  remedial  discipline, 
all  be  brought  to  repentance,  to  faith  ;  will  be  restored  to  God's  Fatherly 
love,  etc.  If  this  is  the  Scripture  doctrine,  why  do  Christ  and  His 
apostles  never  explicitly  say  so  ?  Why  do  they  not  use  expressions  as 
clear  and  unmistakable  as  Dr.  Cox's  own?     Why  only  these  general 


532  NOTES  TO  LECTURE  IX. 

expressions,  of  wliicli  the  application  is  the  very  question  in  dispute? 
The  ancient  prophets,  e.g.^  had  no  difficulty  in  making  clear  their  belief 
that  a  day  of  general  conversion  would  come  for  sinful  and  rejected 
Israel.  Why  does  Jesus,  or  Paul,  or  John  not  tell  us  as  plainly  that  a 
day  of  general  forgiveness  and  restoration  will  come  for  all  God's 
backsliding  children — that  those  whom  they  describe  as  perishing  and 
destroyed,  and  under  wrath,  and  undergoing  the  second  death,  will  yet 
be  changed  in  their  dispositions,  and  made  sharers  of  God's  eternal  life  1 
It  is  not  simply  that  this  is  not  declared  of  all,  but  it  is  not,  in  one 
single  utterance,  declared  of  any ;  and  while  this  is  the  state  of  the  case 
scripturally,  universal  restoration,  however  congenial  to  our  wishes, 
must  be  held  to  be  a  dream  in  the  air,  without  solid  basis  in  Revelation. 

What  many  passages  do  teach  is  the  complete  subjugation  of  those 
found  finally  opposed  to  Christ ;  and  in  this  way  the  restoration  of  a 
unity  or  harmony  in  the  universe,  which  involves  the  cessation  of 
active,  or  at  least  effective,  opposition  to  Christ's  rule.  What  may  be 
covered  by  such  expressions, — or  what  yet  unrevealed  may  in  future 
ages  be  disclosed, — who  can  tell  ? 

Reference  may  be  made  to  a  careful  study  of  the  whole  New  Testament 
teaching  on  this  subject  in  a  series  of  papers  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Agar 
Beet  in  the  Expositor ,  vol.  i.  (4th  series)  1890. 


I K  D  E  X. 


AcKERMANN,  Madame,  86. 

Acosmism,  307,  417. 

Agnosticism,  alternative  to  Christian 

view,    60-4 ;    tends   to    Pessimism, 

65  ;  involves  a  negation,  97,  93  ;  Mr. 

Spencer's  discussed,  98-104  ;  truth 

in,  14,  102  ;  Agnostic  systems,  417  ; 

controversy  on,  425. 
Antiquity  of  man,  bearings  on  Chris- 
tian view,  215-6  ;  BoydDawkinson, 

216  ;  in  relation  to  geological  time, 

504-6. 
Argyll,  Duke  of,  on   primitive  man, 

500. 
Arianism,  defeat  of,  57,  445-6  ;  Har- 

nack  on.  446  ;  Carlyle  on,  446. 
Astronomical  objection  to  Christianity, 

371-6,  528-30;   Professor  Freeman 

on,  528-9. 
Atoms,  structure  of,  149;  creation  of, 

150  ;  Herschell  on,  150. 
Atonement,  see  Redemption.    Meaning 

of  word,  333. 
Augustine,    on  cognisability  of  God, 

103  ;   on  the   Trinity,  309,  312-3  ; 

on  eternity  and  time,  487. 

Baethgen,  on  Old  Testament  Mono- 
theism, 469-70. 

Baldensperger,  on  claims  of  Jesus,  253  ; 
on  self-consciousness  of  Jesus,  294- 
6  ;  on  pre-existence,  508-9. 

Ball,  Professor,  on  planets,  373  ;  on 
nebular  hypothesis,  483. 

Baring-Gould,  13. 

Baur,  A.,  on  "Weltanschauung," 
42-4. 

Be3'schlag,   his  Christology,   255 ;  on 


"Godhead"  of  Christ,  273,  278, 
301 ;  on  sinlessness  of  Christ,  268  ; 
on  self-consciousness  of  Christ,  289- 
91  ;  on  Second  Advent,  383  ;  on 
glorification  of  Christ,  385 ;  on 
modern  views,  424, 

Biedermann,  his  Theism,  74,  443 ;  on 
Revelation,  76,  460;  his  Christology, 
53  ;  on  *'  Heavenly  Man  "  theory, 
255  ;  on  the  Trinity,  310. 

Bohme,  Jacob,  quoted  by  Hegel,  68  ; 
on  existence  of  evil,  222,  227  ;  on  the 
Trinity,  312. 

Bornemann,  on  **  Godhead  "  of  Christ, 
449  ;  on  pre  -  existence,  509  ;  on 
resurrection  of  Christ,  514. 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  on  moral  end,  207  ;  on 
dualism,  497. 

Browning,  R.,  on  immortality,  185, 
187  ;  on  evil,  223. 

Bruce,  Professor  A.  B.,  on  Kenotic 
theories,  281 ;  on  kingdom  of  God, 
384,  402,  405  ;  on  modern  substi- 
tutes for  Christianity,  437. 

Buddhism,  Divinity  of  its  founder, 
252  ;  its  redemption,  332  ;  its  escha- 
tology,  369  ;  in  what  sense  a  religion, 
436. 

Bushnell,  on  Gospel  picture  of  Christ, 
265  ;  his  theory  of  redemption,  346- 
52,  364;  on  fate  of  the  wicked, 
387. 

Caird,  Profesor  E.,  on  Comte,  6,  421, 
437  ;  on  Kant,  114,  119,  156,  160, 
186,  197,  475-6;  on  Kant's  view  of 
the  end  of  creation,  130  ;  on  uncon- 
scious metaphysics,  421. 


534 


INDEX, 


Caird,  Principal  J.,  on  theistic  proofs, 

114,  116  ;  on  Materialism,  177. 
Cairns,  Principal  J.,  on  Yoltaire,  81  ; 

on  Unitarianism,  447. 
Calderwood,    Professor  H.,    on    mind 

and  cerebral  activity,  179,  490-3. 
Calvin,  on  the  Trinity,  308-9. 
Campbell,  J.   M'Leod,   his   theory  of 

atonement,  358-62. 
Candlish,  Professor  J.,  on  kingdom  of 
God,  402  ;  on  Christianity  and  pro- 
gress, 453-4. 
Caro,  on  Pessimism,  ^^,  87,  370,  454  ; 

on  God,  439. 
Cheyne,  Professor,  on  doctrine  of  re- 
surrection, 237-8,  242-5  ;  on  Zoro- 
astrianism,  237-8. 
Christ,  the  centre  of  His  religion,  4, 
51-4,  444-5  ;  His  view  supernatural, 
11,  62,  77  ;  modern  views  regarding, 
51-4,  249;  His  doctrines  of  God, 
77,  94-6 ;  of  man,  142-3  ;  of  re- 
demption, 334-8  ;  His  eschatological 
teaching,  253,  266-7,  383-6  ;  His 
self-witness,  55,  251  ;  His  claims, 
265-7 ;  His  sinlessness,  267-8  ; 
His  miracles,  268-9  ;  His  resurrec- 
tion, 269-70,  512-5. 

Divinity  of,  view  of,  in  apostolic 
Church,  252 ;  in  Fourth  Gospel, 
253-4,  263  ;  in  Paul,  254-8 ;  in 
Hebrews,  258  ;  in  Apocalypse,  259  ; 
in  minor  Epistles,  261 ;  in  Acts, 
262 ;  in  synoptic  Gospels,  264-75  ; 
modern  theories  of,  54,  272-4  ;  ob- 
jection to,  from  His  lowliness,  249- 
51  ;  views  of  Schleiermacher,  59, 
272-6  ;  of  Eothe,  273,  277  ;  of  Bey- 
schlag,  273,  278,  290,  301  ;  of 
Ritschl,  54,  60,  273-6,  448  ;  of 
Lipsius,  274  ;  of  Schultz,  293  ;  of  F. 
•A.  B.  Nitzsch,  517  ;  of  Dorner,  518  ; 
speculative  Christologies,  58,  443, 
459-60. 

Self-consciousness  of,  287-98  ; 
views  of  Beyschlag,  289-91  ;  of  H. 
Schmidt,  291-3  ;  of  Grau,  293-4  ; 
of  Baldensperger,  294-6  ;  of  Wendt, 
296-8. 
Christianity,  involves  a  view  of  the 
world,  9,  17,  26,  38-41  ;  a  super- 
natural system,  11,  12,  422-4  ;  rela- 


tion to  philosophy  and  science,  9,  29- 
36,  440-3  ;  relation  to  doctrine,  18, 
19,  22-9  ;  unites  the  truths  of  other 
systems,  12 ;  its  spirituality,  24  ; 
involves  Revelation,  9,  25,  93-4 ; 
the  religion  of  the  incarnation,  4, 
38-9,  51-2  ;  the  religion  of  redemp- 
tion, 193,  331-2  ;  the  Christian  view 
and  its  alternatives,  see  Lecture  II. 

Clifford,  Professor,  83  ;  on  atoms,  149. 

Comte,  A.,  his  "  Weltanschauung,"  6  ; 
his  religion,  14,  378,  436-7  ;  his 
metaphysics,  417,  421  ;  on  defects 
in  nature,  496  ;  affinities  with  Chris- 
tianity, 14,  378. 

Cox,  Dr.  S.,  on  Universalism,  386, 
531. 

Creation,  Scripture  doctrine  of,  37, 
144  ;  importance  of  doctrine,  145  ; 
connection  with  doctrine  of  man, 
145,  157-60  ;  opposed  to  dualism, 
146  ;  to  logical  derivation  of  the 
universe,  147  ;  to  self-existence  of 
the  universe,  149  ;  evidence  of,  149- 
52  ;  difficulties  of  a  beginning  in 
time,  152  ;  theory  of  an  eternal 
creation,  153,  485-6  ;  motive  and 
end  of,  155  ;  man  the  head  of,  157- 
9  ;  hypothesis  of  cycles,  150,  483-4; 
the  creation  history,  480-2  ;  defects 
in,  an  argument  against  Theism, 
495-6. 

Cycles,  hypothesis  of,  150,  369-71, 
483-4. 

Darwinism,  not  the  only  form  of 
evolution,  119,  476-8  ;  and  design, 
119-22  ;  G.  H.  Lewes  on,  476  ;  G. 
J.  Romanes  on,  477  ;  H.  Spencer  on, 
477.     See  Evolution. 

Davidson,  Professor  A.  B.,  on  immor- 
tality in  Old  Testament,  241-2. 

Dawkins,  Professor  Boyd,  on  antiquity 
of  man,  216. 

Dawson,  Sir  J.  W.,  on  evolution,  121 ; 
on  primitive  man,  217,  500 ;  on 
antiquity  of  man,  501,  506. 

Death,  in  nature,  219-21  ;  of  man, 
see  Sin. 

Deism,  and  Christian  view,  14 ;  its 
weakness,  450-1 ;  definition,  418. 

Delitzsch,  F.,  on  prevision  of  fall,  227  ; 


INDEX, 


535 


on  immortality  in  Psalms,  243-4  ; 
on  angel  of  Jehovah,  305  ;  on  anti" 
supei  naturalism  of  the  modern  view, 
423. 

Dorner,  A.,  on  religious  and  theoretic 
knowledge,  440-1. 

Dorner,  Dr.,  on  world- view  in  Chris- 
tianity, 10  ;  on  relation  of  God  to 
the  world,  14,  318  ;  on  teleology,  17, 
371 ;  on  religion,  21  ;  on  Christo- 
logy,  54 ;  on  Feuerbach,  71  ;  on 
personality  of  God  and  of  man,  141  ; 
on  creation,  153,  485-6 ;  on  sin 
200,  211,  227,  228  ;  on  Aquinas,  221  ; 
on  Christology  of  Synoptics,  271  ; 
on  Trinity,  270,  311,  518-9  ;  on  in- 
carnation and  sin,  320  ;  on  substitu- 
tion, 347  ;  on  *'  modern  "  views,  424  ; 
on  eternity  and  time,  487  ;  on  astro- 
nomical objection,  529. 

Dualism,  Persian,  17,  204  ;  and  crea- 
tion, 146  ;  and  sin,  204,  496-7  ;  of 
Martineau,  146  ;  of  J.  S.  Mill,  146-7  ; 
of  S.  Laing,  496. 

DuBois-Reymond,  on  Materialism,  168, 
173. 

Ebrard,  on  Zoroastrianism,  17,  496  ; 
on  early  Monotheism,  502-3  ;  on 
astronomical  objection,  529. 

Eliot,  George,  on  Meliorism,  196  ;  on 
immortality,  178. 

Ellicott,  Bishop,  on  vanity  of  creation, 
227. 

Energy,  dissipation  of,  151,  484  ;  bear- 
ings of  conservation  of,  on  Material- 
ism, 171-2. 

Erskine,  of  Linlathen,  on  atonement, 
356. 

Eschatology,  in  Christian  view,  39,  370  ; 
of  philosophy  and  science,  369-70  ; 
Christ's  teaching  on,  253,  266-7, 
383-6  ;  laws  of  interpretation,  377  ; 
destiny  of  the  believer— conformity 
to  Christ,  380  ;  the  resurrection, 
380-3 ;  transformation  of  nature,  383 ; 
the  Second  Advent,  383-5;  the 
Judgment,  385-6  ;  destiny  of  the 
wicked  —  theories  on  this  subject, 
386-7  ;  fundamental  positions,  388- 
90  ;  dogmatic  Universalism,  390-1  ; 
conditional      immortality,      391-4  ; 


future  probation,  394-7;  result,  397; 
Kenan's  eschatology,  527-8. 

Eternal  series,  inadequacy  of  the  hypo- 
thesis, 115,  151 ;  theory  of  cycles,  483. 

Eternity  and  time,  155,  487. 

Evil,  problem  of  natural  and  moral, 
193-5  ;  recognition  of,  in  modern 
thought,  195-200 ;  connection  of 
natural  and  moral,  194,  218,  225-8  ; 
in  inorganic  world,  218  ;  in  organic 
world,  219  ;  animal  suffering  and 
death,  219-22 ;  natural  evil  in  rela- 
tion to  man,  222-5  ;  and  moral  go- 
vernment, 225;  groaning  of  creation, 
226-8  ;  theory  of  anticipative  conse- 
quences, 227,  323 ;  sin  and  death, 
228-33.     See  Sin. 

Evolution,  scope  of  theory  of,  9,  421-2  ; 
in  religion,  91,  215,  466-9  ;  and 
design,  118-22  ;  and  a  beginning  in 
time,  150 ;  breaks  in,  151,  214 ; 
nebular  hypothesis,  150,  482-3  ;  and 
doctrine  of  sin,  206,  209-12  ;  and 
primitive  man,  212-6  ;  and  the  in- 
carnation, 250-1  ;  schools  of  evolu- 
tionists, 476-8. 

Fairbairn,  Principal  A.  M.,  on  meta- 
physics in  science,  7,  421 ;  on  cosmic 
theories,  9  ;  on  conflict  of  views, 
422  ;  on  evolution  in  religion,  466  ; 
on  Vedic  religion,  503. 

Fairbairn,  Principal  P.,  on  immortality 
in  Old  Testament,  234  ;  on  incarna- 
tion and  sin,  320-1,  324-5. 

Fall,  The,  Scripture  doctrine  of,  38, 201 , 
203,  217  ;  Hegel  on,  205,  497-8; 
denial  of,  by  modern  view,  38,  210  ; 
relation  to  death,  229-33,  506-7. 

Farrar,  on  loss  of  the  soul,  390. 

Feuerbach,  his  theory  of  religion,  21, 
433,  439  ;  on  Christ,  62  ;  his  Materi- 
alism, 72. 

Fichte,  J.  G.,  and  Theism,  72-3  ;  his 
later  philosophy,  458-60  ;  referred 
to,  68,  71. 

Fiske,  J.,  on  Theism,  102  ;  on  person- 
ality of  God,  112  ;  on  immortality, 
178,  186  ;  on  original  sin,  197  ; 
*'Physicus"  on,  426-7  ;  on  man  as 
goal  of  creation,  488-9  ;  on  astro- 
nomical objection,  529. 


53<5 


INDEX, 


Flint,  Professor  R.,  on  Trinity,  152, 
303  ;  on  Pessimism,  196. 

Freeman,  Professor  .E.  A.,  on  astro- 
nomical objection  to  Christianity, 
528-9. 

Future  probation,  394-7. 

Getkie,  Sir  Archibald,  on  geological 
time,  505. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  and  S.  Laing,  425  ; 
on  Old  Testament,  429  ;  on  creation, 
480. 

God,  Old  Testament  view  of,  15,  16, 
428-9  ;  in  Christian  view,  14,  37 ; 
Christ's  doctrine  of,  94-6  ;  self-re- 
vealing, 75,  77,  80,  93,  96  ;  know- 
ableness  of,  14,  22,  102-3  ;  person- 
ality of,  111-12  ;  proofs  of  existence 
of,  112-33  ;  as  religious  postulate, 
134-7  ;  connection  of  doctrines  of 
God  and  of  man,  141  ;  higher  concep- 
tion of  God  involved  in  the  incarna- 
tion, 302-19.  5'ee  Theism,  Trinity, 
etc. 

Goethe,  on  vanity  of  life,  82. 

Gore,  Principal  C,  on  miracles,  151. 

Grau,  on  self-consciousness  of  Jesus, 
293-4  ;  criticism  of  Schultz,  293. 

Green,  T.  H.,  his  Theism,  74  ;  on  on- 
tological  argument,  124  ;  on  crea- 
tion, 147 ;  on  eternity  and  time, 
154 ;  on  moral  end,  207  ;  on  resur- 
rection, 381 ;  defects  of  his  theor\% 
471-4. 

Greg,  W.  R.,  on  Theism,  63  ;  on  im- 
mortality, 178  ;  on  retribution,  388  ; 
and  F.  W.  Newman,  426;  his  Uni- 
tarianism,  446  ;  on  defects  in  crea- 
tion, 495. 

Haeckel,  E.,  Materialism  of,  169,  418 ; 
on  Mosaic  cosmogony,  480-1  ;  on 
'* mind-cells,"  491.  . 

Harnack,  A.,  on  Christian  view  of  the 
world,  26  ;  on  Arianism,  446  ;  on 
pre-existence,  508-9. 

Han-ison,  F.,  on  Mr.  Spencer's  Un- 
knowable, 425  ;  and  Professor  Hux- 
ley, 425  ;  on  Fetishism,  467 ;  on 
ghost-worship,  467. 

Hartmann,  E.  Von,  on  "Weltanschau- 
ung,"  20;  on  Trinity,    14;    philo- 


sophy of,  67-70  ;  theory  of  religion, 
70,  75,  456-7 ;  on  Pessimism  of 
Christianity,  196,  199 ;  on  creation, 
204 ;  his  eschatology,  370,  527  ;  on 
modern  views,  424,  452  ;  on  Strauss, 
427  ;  on  Christology,  445. 

Hegel,  his  system,  9  ;  theory  of  re- 
ligion, 36,  135,  442-3  ;  on  Christ- 
ology, 53,  444  ;  on  creation,  68  ;  on 
God,  111,  116,  147,  471  ;  on  immor- 
tality, 178  ;  on  sin,  200,  205,  208, 
497-8  ;  on  Ti-inity,  308,  312,  315, 
516  ;  on  "  Weltanschauung,"  415. 

Herder,  on  man's  place  in  nature,  488. 

Heredity,  198-9,  390,  396. 

Hermann,  Professor  W.,  on  "Weltan- 
schauung," 46,  47  ;  Christology  of, 
449  ;  on  Revelation,  462-5. 

Hutton,  R.  H.,  on  the  incarnation, 
317. 

Huxley,  Professor,  on  man's  j>lace  in 
nature,  8,  488 ;  on  progress,  85  ;  on 
Agnosticism,  97  ;  on  Materialism, 
167-74  ;  no  hope  of  immortality, 
178  ;  on  Mr.  Harrison,  425  ;  on  S. 
Laing,  425  ;  on  natural  selection, 
478  ;  on  a  beginning  in  time,  484  ; 
on  human  automatism,  489-90. 

Ice  age,  504-5. 

Immortality,  Bible  doctrine  of,  177, 
229-33 ;  and  modern  view,  177  ; 
scientific  objections  to,  179 ;  evi- 
dences of,  180-9  ;  in  Old  Testament, 
235-46  ;  conditional,  180,  387, 
391-4  ;  Egyptian,  Babylonian,  and 
Assyrian  views  of,  234,  235,  238. 

Incarnation,  its  place  in  the  Christian 
view,  4,  11,  38,  51-2;  relation  to 
other  doctrines,  38,  39 ;  objections  to, 
51,  250-1  ;  view  of  man  implied  in, 
143  ;  modern  theories  of,  see  Christ; 
Kenotic  theories,  280-1  ;  higher 
concept  of  God  involved  in,  301-19  ; 
and  plan  of  the  world  ;  relation  to 
sin,  319-27;  connection  with  redemp- 
tion, 285,  331,  341-2. 

Irenreus,  on  incarnation,  321,  342. 

Iverach,  Professor,  on  personality,  112. 

JOTJFFROY,  T.,  84. 

Justification,  germ  theory  of,  524-6. 


INDEX, 


537 


Kaftan,  on  "Weltanschauung,"  47  ; 
on  Trinity,  302,  520-1  ;  on  king- 
dom of  God,  377-8,  403,  411,  463  ; 
on  religion,  432,  434,  438  ;  on 
religious  and  theoretic  knowledge, 
441  ;  of  "Godhead"  of  Christ,  445, 
449  ;  on  Revelation,  463,  465 ; 
on  man's  place  in  nature,  489. 

Kant,  idea  of  a  world-whole,  5,  415  ; 
on  theistic  proofs,  112-3  ;  on 
cosmological  argument,  114,  474  ; 
on  teleological  argument,  112,  116, 
475  ;  on  ontological  argument,  123- 
4,  478;  on  moral  argument,  129-31 ; 
on  end  of  creation,  150,  186  ;  on 
"doctrinal  faith,"  187,  475  ;  on  im- 
mortality, 187  ;  on  boundlessness  of 
desire,  185  ;  on  radical  evil  of  human 
nature,  197  ;  his  cosmogony,  370, 
483  ;  moral  view  of  Christianity, 
465  ;  man  the  end  of  nature,  488. 

Kingdom  of  God,  in  Christian  view, 
39;  Ritschl  on,  377,  404;  Kaftan 
on,  377-8,  403,  411  ;  on  earth, 
378-9,  405 ;  in  eternity,  379  ;  idta 
of,  401-12  ;  place  in  recent  theology, 
401-5  ;  teaching  of  Jesus  on,  405- 
10 ;  and  new  life  of  humanity, 
410-2. 

Kittel,  R.,  on  Old  Testament  Revela- 
tion, 430. 

Kuenen,  on  "Ethical  Monotheism," 
79,  428,  469. 

Laidlaw,     Professor     J.,     on     Mr. 

Spencer,  109  ;  on  Trinity,  303. 
Laing,  S.,  Professor  Huxley  on,  425  ; 

his  dualism,  496. 
Lange,  A.,  169,  439. 
Laveleye,  Emile  de,  86-7. 
Lewes,  G.  H.,  on  evolution,  476. 
Liberal  Protestantism,  Strauss  on,  451 ; 

Hartmann    on,    452 ;    in    Holland, 

452-3. 
Lightfoot,  Bishop,  on  Pauline  Christ- 

ology,  257,  322,  326. 
Lipsius,  R.  A.,  on  Revelation,  75,  76; 

on  sin,  206-9  ;  on  natural  evil,  225  ; 

on    justification,   209 ;    on    Christ- 

ology,  53,  250,  256,  274,  445  ;   on 

sinlessness  of  Christ,  268  ;  on  nature 

of  religion,  434  ;  on  creation,  485. 


Littre,  E.,  87. 

Logic  of  history,  55. 

Lotze,  H.,  on  Zoroastrianism,  17;  on 
personality  of  God,  112  ;  on  creation, 
148,  153,  166,  486  ;  on  Materialism, 
176 ;  on  Old  Testament  religion, 
427. 

Lucretius,  his  "  Weltanschauung,"  6  ; 
on  defects  in  creation,  495. 

Lnthardt,  on  Pessimism,  66,  454. 

"Lux  Mundi,"  on  Monotheism,  105. 

Man,  Christian  view  of,  37,  141 ;  son- 
ship  to  God,  142  ;  ideal  in  the  in- 
carnation, 143  ;  relation  to  nature, 
143  ;  head  of  creation,  157-9,  488-9  ; 
link  between  two  worlds,  160  ;  his 
body,  161 ;  his  soul  and  spirit,  161-3  ; 
image  of  God  in,  142-3,  ]64-7  ; 
immortality  of,  177-89 ;  primitive, 
210-7,  499-501. 

Martensen,  on  evil  in  nature,  222,  227  ; 
on  Trinity,  303,  316  ;  on  incarna- 
tion and  sin,  321. 

Martineau,  Dr.  James,  on  religion,  21  ; 
on  Revelation,  77,  79  ;  on  Materi- 
alism, 171 ;  on  animal  suffering, 
221  ;  on  Christology  of  Fourth 
Gospel,  253-4,264;  on  Unitarianism, 
446-8  ;  on  the  Trinity,  521-2. 

Materialism,  as  a  stage  of  thought, 
65,  71  ;  in  Germany,  71,  457-8  ;  its 
relative  right,  161  ;  criticism  of,  167- 
77  ;  denial  of  immortality  in,  178  ; 
annuls  sin,  194  ;  its  systems,  418. 

Maudsley,  on  heredity,  199,  390  ;  on 
defects  in  creation,  496. 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  on  atonement,  355-6, 

Metaphysics,  unconscious,  7,  419,  421  ; 
in  theology,  35. 

Meyer,  on  "Heavenly  Man"  theory, 
256  ;  on  Pauline  Universalism,  530. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  on  Theism,  105,  120  ;  on 
fundamental  truths,  125  ;  his  dual- 
ism, 146-7  ;  on  immortality,  179, 
184-5,  188  ;  indictment  of  nature, 
193,  217. 

Mind,  and  mechanical  causation, 
173-5,  489-90 ;  and  cerebral  activ- 
ity, 175,  490-3. 

Miracles,  Max  Miiller  on,  11  ;  relation 
to  Christian  view,  12  ;  Ritschl  on, 


538 


INDEX. 


31  ;  Theism  and,  92 ;  Gore  on,  151  ; 
Bushnell  on,  165  ;  Christ's,  268-9  ; 
denial  by  modern  view,  423. 

Mivart,  St.  George,  on  animal  suffering, 
220  ;  on  evolution,  476. 

*  *  Modern "  view  of  the  world,  its 
anti  -  supernaturalism,  10,  422-4  ; 
its  internal  conflicts,  10,  424-7  ; 
rejects  a  fall,  38,  210  ;  and  the  in- 
carnation, 51  ;  its  witness  to  sin, 
195  ;  its  Pessimism,  66,  81,  195  ; 
opposes  Christian  doctrine  of  sin, 
200,  203,  210-17. 

Monier-Williams.  Sir  M.,  on  Buddh- 
ism, 369  ;  on  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,  429. 

Monotheism,  in  Israel,  17,  79,  427-9, 
469-71  ;  not  a  development  from 
Fetishism,  etc.,  91,  215,  466  ;  only 
tenable  form  of  Theism,  105  ;  early, 
215,  601-4. 

Miiller,  Max,  on  miracles,  11,  423 ; 
on  sense  of  the  Divine,  128 ;  on 
immortality,  180,  182 ;  on  ghost- 
worship,  182,  467-8  ;  on  Fetishism, 
466  -  7  ;  on  Totemism,  468  ;  on 
origin  of  religion,  469  ;  on  primitive 
man,  500. 

Murphy,  J.  J.,  on  evolution,  119  ;  on 
original  sin,  200 ;  on  incarnation, 
343. 

Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  on  the  disenchant- 
ment of  France,  87. 

N  BANDER,  on  essence  of  Christian 
religion,  12  ;  on  kingdom  of  Go<l, 
406. 

Nebular  Hypothesis,  482-3. 

Neo-Hegelianism,  and  Theism,  112  ; 
of  T.  H.  Green,  74,  472-4;  Pro- 
fessor Seth  on,  74,  473  ;  Professor 
Veitch  on,  75,  471-4. 

Neo-Sabellianism,  theories  of  Trinity, 
519-21. 

Nitzsch,  F.  A.  B.,  on  redemption, 
355  ;  on  Trinity,  517-8. 

Old  Testament,  its  view  of  the 
world,  15-17  ;  uniqueness  of,  17, 
427-9;  origin  of,  17,  430-1;  Old 
Testament  Monotheism,  17,  79, 
427-9,  469-71  ;   relation  to  critical 


theories,  17,  430 ;  doctrines  of 
creation  in,  144;  of  "soul"  and 
"spirit,"  162-3;  of  "Fall,"  212, 
216;  of  immortality,  235-46;  of 
Trinity,  304-6 ;  of  sacrifice,  339, 
354,  356;  Christ's  teaching  based 
on,  94-5,  407. 

Optimism,  14,  195-9. 

Origen,  on  creation,  152-3,  485 ;  on 
incarnation,  283  ;  on  resurrection, 
382. 

Pantheism,  and  Divine  immanence, 
14,  318  ;  superiority  to  Deism,  62  ; 
descent  to  Materialism,  71,  457, 
473  ;  advance  to  Theism,  72 ;  of 
Fichte  and  Schelling,  72  ;  Hegelian, 
74  ;  of  Spencer,  102,  417  ;  classifica- 
tion of  systems,  418. 

Pessimism,  and  optimism,  14,  418  ; 
alternative  to  Christian  view,  65-7  ; 
prevalence  of,  66,  454-5;  of  Schopen- 
hauer and  Hartmann,  16,  69-71  ; 
connection  with  previous  philosophy, 
68  ;  of  scepticism,  81  -  8  ;  its 
teleology,  68,  118  ;  transition  to 
Theism,  68,  70,  71,  456-7  ;  a  wit- 
ness to  sin,  196-9 ;  to  evil,  217  ; 
and  Christianity,  196,  199;  its 
eschatology,  370,  527 ;  literature 
of,  455-6. 

Peters,  Karl,  on  conflict  of  views, 
43  ;  on  German  Atheism,  65 ;  on 
Schopenhauer,  69  ;  transition  from 
Pessimism  to  Theism,  71,  457 ; 
dualism  of,  146;  on  "  Wei  tan 
schauungen,"  417  ;  on  prevalence  of 
Pessimism,  455, 

Pfleiderer,  0.,  his  anti-supernatural- 
ism,  10 ;  on  Ritschlian  theology, 
46,  47,  435,  498  ;  on  Theism,  74  ; 
on  Revelation,  75-8,  460  ;  on 
original  sin,  200  ;  on  evil,  224-5  ; 
on  influence  of  Philo,  256  ;  on 
Hebrews,  258  ;  on  Apocalypse,  259- 
60  ;  on  1  Peter,  261  ;  Christology, 
250  ;  rejects  Christ's  sinlessness, 
268 ;  on  Trinity,  310  ;  on  self- 
consciousness  of  God,  315 ;  on  Fetish- 
ism, 467-8  ;  on  Holy  Spirit,  517. 

Philo,  and  Fourth  Gospel,  263,  510- 
12 ;    Harnack    on,    264,    512 ;    in- 


INDEX. 


539 


fluence  on  New  Testament  Epistles, 
256,  263  ;  his  Logos  theory,  308, 
312,  318,  510-11. 

"Physicus,"83,  427. 

Plato,  on  justice,  56 ;  his  dualism, 
146 ;  on  the  Good,  156 ;  on  im- 
mortality, 183  ;  on  eternity  and 
time,  487  ;  relation  to  Philo,  510. 

Pre-existence,  idea  of,  508-10. 

Proctor,  R.  A.,  on  nebular  hypothesis, 
482  ;  on  dissipation  of  energy,  484. 

Progress,  Christianity  and,  65,  453-4. 

Proofs,  theistic.     See  God. 

Rainy,  Principal  R.,  26,  28. 

Rational  Realism,  124  ;  Pfleiderer  on, 
479. 

Redemption,    Christianity  a    religion 
of,    39,    194,    332;    in   Buddhism, 
332  ;  connection  with  Christ's  suffer- 
ings    and     death,    333  ;     apostolic 
doctrine  of,  333-4  ;   Christ's  teach- 
ing   on,    334-8  ;    aids    to    compre- 
hension of  in  apostolic  church,  338- 
9  ;   fact   and   theory  of  atonement, 
340 ;    redemption   and   incarnation, 
341-3  ;  theories  of,  343-4  ;  Schleier- 
macher's,    344-6  ;   Pushnell's,  346- 
52  ;    Ritschl's    352-4 ;     Maurice's, 
355-6  ;    relation     to    guilt,     357  ; 
M'Leod  Campbell  on,  358-67  ;  ob- 
jections   to    vicarious    satisfaction, 
363-4  ;  a  complete  theory  embraces 
the  truth  of  all  views,  365-6. 
Religion,    involves   a    "Weltanschau- 
ung,"   20,    45-8,    419,    431,    437  ; 
nature  and  definition  of,  134-7,  431- 
7  ;   undogmatic,     18  -  29,    437  -  8  ; 
aesthetic    theories    of,    21,    438-9; 
Ritschlian  view  of,  30,  45,  47,  434, 
441-2,    465  ;    science   of,    22,    432 ; 
psychological    theories    of,    432-4  ; 
supposed  origin  in  Fetishism,  466- 
7  ;    in    ghost  -  worship,    467-8  ;    in 
Totemism,  468  ;  early  monotheistic 
ideas,  501-4;  Egyptian,  234,  502; 
Babylonian,  234,  502  ;  Vedic,  502- 
3  ;  Iranian,  503  ;  early  Greek,  503 ; 
early  Roman,  503. 
Religious    and    theoretic    knowledge, 
Ritschlian  view  of,  29-36,  60,  441- 
2  ;  relative  truth  of  the  distinction. 


31-3 ;  impossibility  of  divorcing, 
33-6,  435  ;  contrasts  of,  32,  33 ; 
A.  Dorner  on,  440-1. 
Renan,  E.,  his  Pessimism,  82  ;  on  im- 
mortality, 178  ;  on  the  earth  alone 
inhabited,  373-4  ;  on  religion,  437  ; 
on  Semitic  Monotheism,  469 ;  his 
eschatology,  526-7. 
Resurrection,  involved  in  Bible  doctrine 
of  immortalitj',  229-33;  in  Old 
Testament,  234-46  ;  Egyptian  and 
Babylonian  views  of,  23S  ;  in  Zend- 
Avesta,  238  ;  Professor  Cheyne  on, 
237  ;  Dr.  A.  B.  Davidson  on,  241-2, 
245 ;  Christian  doctrine  of,  39, 
380-83. 

Of     Christ,      connection      with 
Christ's   claim,  269-70,    512;   Rit- 
schlian   view  of,    513 ;    reality   of, 
514-5. 
Reuss,  E. ,  on  Christology  of  Paul  and 

the  Apocalypse,  259-60. 
Revelation,  Christian  view  founded  on, 
9,  38  ;  in  religion  of  Israel,  17,  79, 
92,  430-1  ;  modern  theory  of,  75- 
8,  460-1  ;  need  and  reasonableness 
of,  18,  22,  461-2;  character  of 
Biblical,  24  ;  connection  with  living 
Theism,  63-4,  75,  92,  93  ;  Pfleiderer 
on,  75-7,  460  ;  H.  Schmi*dt  on,  460  ; 
Ewald  on,  461  ;  culmination  in 
Christ,  79,  80  ;  Ritschlian  doctrine 
of,  462-5. 
Reville,  A.,  434,  437,  451. 
Ritschl,  A.,  on  religious  and  theoretic 
knowledge,  20-36  ;  on  religion  and 
philosophy,  30,  45,  441-2  ;  on 
miracle,  31  ;  theory  of  religion,  45, 
434  ;  his  Christology,  53,  59,  60, 
274,  276,  445  ;  school  of,  29,  60, 
434,  441,  448,  462,  513-4,  519  ;  on 
sin,  199,  206,  208  ;  on  guilt,  209, 
498-9 ;  on  evil,  225  ;  on  sinlessness 
of  Christ,  268  ;  on  Christ's  exalta- 
tion, 276  ;  on  Schleiermacher,  346  ; 
theory  of  redemption,  352-5 ;  on 
annihilation  of  wicked,  387,  499 ; 
doctrine  of  Revelation,  462-5  ;  on 
death,  506. 
Romanes,  G.  J.,  477. 
Rothe,  R.,  on  Schleiermacher's  school, 
60  ;  on  creation,  144,  485 ;  on  origin 


540 


INDEX. 


of  sin,  204  ;  Christology,  273,  277, 
301 ;  on  siiilessness  of  Christ,  268  ; 
on  necessity  of  incarnation,  321  ;  on 
atonement,  355  ;  on  annihilation  of 
wicked,  387  ;  on  eternity  and  time, 
487. 
Rousseau,  his  optimism,  196. 

ScHELLiNG,  influence  on  Christology, 
53,  444  ;  his  view  of  Christ,  444,  460  ; 
on  the  Trinity,  517. 

Science,  scope  of  claim  of,  9,  421-2 ; 
its  "Weltanschauung,"  418-20;  of 
religion,  22,  432. 

Schleiermacher,  his  view  of  religion, 
26,  116,  434,  435  ;  relation  to  dog- 
matics, 26-7,  439-40;  his  Christ- 
ology, 59,  272-6  ;  on  sin,  205, 
208 ;  on  guilt,  209  ;  on  sinlessness 
of  Christ,  263  ;  on  incarnation,  272  ; 
theory  of  redemption,  344-6 ;  on 
universal  salvation,  386  ;  on  eternal 
creation,  485  ;  on  immortality, 
493-4. 

Schmidt,  H.,  on  self-consciousness  of 
Jesus,  291-3  ;  on  Revelation,  460. 

Schopenhauer,  his  Pessimism,  16,  ^^•, 
his  philosophy,  67-9 ;  his  tele- 
ology, 69  ;  on  Pessimism  of  Christi- 
anity, 196,  199  ;  on  origin  of  evil, 
204. 

Schultz,  H.,  on  connection  of  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  15  ;  on  Old  Testa- 
ment doctrine  of  creation,  144 ;  of 
immortality,  244 ;  of  angel  of 
Jehovah,  305  ;  of  the  Spirit,  306  ; 
on  "Godhead"  of  Christ,  293;  on 
Revelation  in  Old  Testament,  430  ; 
on  Old  Testament  Monotheism,  470. 

Seeley,  Professor,  83. 

Seth,  Professor  A,,  thought  implies 
thinker,  73  ;  on  Theism,  74  ;  on 
self-consciousness,  108  ;  on  aesthetic 
theories  of  religion,  439. 

Sin,  Christian  doctrine  of,  37,  40, 
200-3  ;  connection  with  natural  evil, 
194,  218,  218-28  ;  recognition  of,  by 
modern  view,  195-8  ;  heredity  and 
doctrine  of,  193-200  ;  Pessimism  a 
witness  to,  196,  199 ;  theories  of 
origin  of,  204-9  ;  evolutionary  view 
of,    206,  210-12;  connection  of  sin 


and  death,  228-33,  506-7  ;  relation 
of  incarnation  to,  319-27.    <S'ee  Evil. 

Smith,  Professor  W.  R.,  on  want  of 
dogma  in  pagan  religions,  23 ;  on 
uniqueness  of  Old  Testament  view, 
428-9  ;  on  Totemism,  468. 

Spencer,  H.,  on  unification  of  know- 
ledge, 9  ;  doctrine  of  Unknowable, 
97-104,  105-11  ;  his  teleology,  107, 
109,  157  ;  controversy  with  Mr. 
Harrison,  101,  425 ;  on  natural  se- 
lection, 121,  477  ;  on  Materialism, 
169,  174 ;  on  origin  of  belief  in 
future  life,  181-3  ;  objection  to  Reve- 
lation, 375  ;  oil  Fetishism,  467  ;  on 
ghost-worship,  467  ;  his  eschatology, 
370,  483-4. 

Spinoza,  his  Pantheism,  116,  418  ;  on 
nature  of  God,  104  ;  on  necessity  of 
universe,  147  ;  on  knowledge  snh 
sjyecie  ceternitatis,  153  ;  excludes 
personal  immortality,  178. 

Stephen,  Sir  J.,  on  Spencer,  425. 

Stephen,  Leslie,  on  social  evolution, 
207. 

Stirling,  Dr.  H.,  on  theistic  proofs, 
114  ;  on  eternal  series,  116  ;  on  the 
Old  Testament,  428 ;  on  eternity 
and  time,  487  ;  on  man's  place  in 
nature,  488. 

Strauss,  D.,  on  origin  of  world-view, 
7  ;  on  sesthetic  theories  of  religion, 
22  ;  on  central  dogma  of  Christi- 
anity, 52  ;  on  Materialism,  169  ;  on 
immortality,  178  ;  on  sinlessness  of 
Christ,  268  ;  his  eschatology,  370  ; 
on  modern  "Weltanschauung,"  415  ; 
and  Hartmann,  427;  earlier  views 
of  Christianity,  451. 

Supernatural,  involved  in  Christianity, 
11,  62;  denial  of,  by  "modern" 
view,  422-4  ;  involved  in  Theism, 
92. 

Theism,  need  of  a  living,  62,  64,  93  ; 
Mr.  Greg  on,  63  ;  involves  Revela- 
tion, 64,  75,  92,  93  ;  Theism  of 
Christ,  63,  94-96  ;  Monotheism  the 
only  tenable  form  of,  105  ;  and 
evolutionary  philosophy,  105-12 ; 
Mr.  Spencer's  Power  the  source  of  a 
rational  order,  106-8  ;  the  source  of 


INDEX. 


541 


a  moral  order,  108-11  ;  personal, 
in-2;  the  theistic  proofs,  112-4; 
the  cosraological  argument,  114-7, 
474  ;  the  teleological  argument, 
117-23,  475  ;  evolution  and  design, 
118-22  ;  the  intuition  of  Divine, 
127-9;  the  moral  argument,  129-33  ; 
a  religious  postulate,  130,  134-7. 

Thomson,  Sir  W.  (Lord  Kelvin),  on 
dissipation  of  energy,  484  ;  on  geo- 
logical time,  505. 

Trinity,   higher  Christian  concept  of 
God,  14,   152,  302;  induction  from 
facts  of  Revelation,  302-4  ;  value  of 
doctrine,  303  ;  anticipations  in  Old 
Testament — angel  of  Jehovah,  303 
doctrine  of  Spirit,  303  ;  of  wisdom 
306  ;  objections  to,  306  ;  approxima 
tions    to,     in    philosophy,    307-8 
311-2;  the  word  "person,"  308-9 
Sabellian  theories,  310-11,  519-21 
psychological  analogies,   312-3;  su 
periority  to  Unitarian  view,    314 
deduction   from  knowledge,  314-5 
from  love,  315-7;  from  Fatherhood 
317-8  ;  bearing  on  relation  of  God 
to  the  world,   318  ;  recent  theories 
of,  517-21. 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  467,  500. 

Tyndall,  Prof.,  on  Materialism,  169-72; 
no  doctrine  of  immortality,  178  ;  on 
primitive  matter,  251  ;  on  religion, 
438  ;  on  man's  place  in  nature,  488. 

Universalism,  theory  of,  386,  390-1  ; 
alleged  Pauline,  391,  530-2 ;  Schleier- 
macher  on,  386  ;  Dr.  Cox  on,  386, 
531  ;  Farrar  on,  390. 

"Unseen  Universe,"  authors  of,  on 
atoms,  149;  on  creation,  150;  their 
eschatology,  370 ;  on  resurrection, 
382  ;  on  dissipation  of  energy,  484. 


Vaihanger,  439, 

Vatke,  268,  444. 

Veitch,  Prof.  J.,  on  Lucretius,  6  ;  on 

Agnosticism,  103  ;  on  Neo-Hegelian 

theory,  472-4. 
Volkmar,  on  Monotheism  in  Israel,  91. 
Voltaire,  his  sadness,  81. 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  on  breaks  in  evolu- 
tion, 151  ;  on  special  origin  of  man, 
214  ;  relation  to  Darwinism,  477;  on 
man's  place  in  nature,  488. 

Weiss,  B.,  on  "Heavenly  Man" 
theory,  256  ;  on  Christology  of  Acts, 
262 ;  of  1  Peter,  261 ;  on  plan  of 
creation,  325  ;  on  Pauline  Univer- 
salism, 391,  531. 

"Weltanschauung,"  the  term,  3;  the 
idea,  5,  42-64  ;  kinds  of,  5,  417-9 ; 
causes  of,  6-9  ;  fondness  for  general 
theories,  8,  43  ;  the  Christian,  5,  10, 
17,  38-41;  the  "modern,"  10-12, 
40,  51,  177,  195,  200,  212,  416-7; 
422-7 ;  Ritschlian  view  of,  45-8  ; 
of  Pessimism,  67  ;  illustrations  of 
term,  415-7;  classification  of  views, 
417-21. 

Wendt,  ethical  Sonship  of  Christ,  54, 
254,  297 ;  on  self-consciousness  of 
Jesus,  296-8  ;  on  kingdom  of  God, 
405. 

Westcott,  Bishop,  on  incarnation,  321 ; 
on  atonement,  357. 

Westphal,  A.,  on  Revelation  in  Old 
Testament,  430. 

White,  E. ,  on  conditional  immortality, 
180,  387  ;  criticised,  391-4. 

Whitelaw,  T.,  on  Christ's  Divinity, 
152. 

Zeller,  5,  421,  483. 
Zoroastrianism,  17,  237-8,  496,  503. 


MORRISON  AND  GIBB,  PRINTERS,  EDINBURGH. 


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